MASTEIIS    OF  THE 
ENGLISH  NOVEL,, 

RICHARD   BURTOMiiiiiiili 


^  €.  ,fi%^t.<^ 


///^ 


MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 


MASTERS    OF    THE 
ENGLISH    NOVEL 


A  STUDY  OF 
PRINCIPLES  AND  PERSONALITIES 


BY 

RICHARD  BURTON 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1909 


Copyright,  1909, 

HY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

Published  October,  1909 


P^  LIBUAUY 

•    /  UNIVERSITY  O?  CALIFORNIA 

-£^2  SANTA  BAUSARA 


PREFACE 

The  principle  of  inclusion  in  this  book  is  the  tra- 
ditional one  which  assumes  that  criticism  is  only 
safe  when  it  deals  with  authors  who  are  dead.  In 
proportion  as  we  approach  the  living  or,  worse, 
speak  of  those  still  on  earth,  the  proper  perspective 
is  lost  and  the  dangers  of  contemporary  judgment 
incurred.  The  light-minded  might  add,  that  the 
dead  cannot  strike  back;  to  pass  judgment  upon 
them  is  not  only  more  critical  but  safer. 

Sometimes,  however,  the  distinction  between  the 
living  and  the  dead  is  an  invidious  one.  Three 
authors  hereinafter  studied  are  examples :  Meredith, 
Hardy  and  Stevenson.  Hardy  alone  is  now  in  the 
land  of  the  living,  Meredith  having  but  just  passed 
away.  Yet  to  omit  the  former,  while  including  the 
other  two,  is  obviously  arbitrary,  since  his  work  in 
fiction  is  as  truly  done  as  if  he,  like  them,  rested  from 
his  literary  labors  and  the  gravestone  chronicled  his 
day  of  death.  For  reasons  best  known  to  himself, 
Mr.  Hardy  seems  to  have  chosen  verse  for  the  final 
expression  of  his  personality.  It  is  more  than  a 
decade  since  he  published  a  novel.  So  far  as  age 
goes,  he  is  the  senior  of  Stevenson :  "  Desperate 
Remedies  "  appeared  when  the  latter  was  a  stripling 


vi  PREFACE 

;it  tlio  Uiiivcrsify  of  Ktlinburgli.  Hnrdy  is  there- 
fore incliuled  in  the  survey.  I  am  fully  uwure  that 
to  strive  to  measure  the  accomplishment  of  those 
])raclic'aliy  contemporary,  whether  it  he  Meredith 
and  Hardy  or  James  and  Howells,  is  but  more  or 
less  intelligent  guess-work.  Nevertheless,  it  is  pleas- 
ant employ,  the  more  interesting,  perhaps,  to  the 
critic  and  his  readers  because  an  element  of  un- 
certainty creeps  into  what  is  said.  If  the  critic  runs 
the  risk  of  Jc  su'is,  J'y  reste,  he  gets  his  reward 
in  the  thrill  of  prophecy ;  and  should  he  turn  out  a 
false  prophet,  he  is  consoled  by  the  reflection  that 
it  will  place  him  in  a  large  and  enjoyable  company. 

Throughout  the  discussion  it  has  been  the  inten- 
tion to  keep  steadily  before  the  reader  the  two  main 
ways  of  looking  at  life  in  fiction,  which  have  led  to 
the  so-called  realistic  and  romantic  movements.  No 
fear  of  repetition  in  the  study  of  the  respective 
novelists  has  kept  me  from  illustrating  from  many 
points  of  view  and  taking  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity offered  by  each  author,  the  distinction  thus 
set  up.  For  back  of  all  stale  jugglery  of  terms, 
lies  a  very  real  and  permanent  difference.  The  words 
denote  different  types  of  mind  as  well  as  of  art :  and 
express  also  a  changed  interpretation  of  the  world  of 
men,  resulting  from  the  social  and  intellectual  revo- 
lution since  1750. 

No  apology  would  appear  to  be  necessary  for 
Chapter  Seven,  which  devotes  sufficient  space  to  the 


PREFACE  vii 

French  influence  to  show  how  it  affected  the  realistic 
tendency  of  all  modern  novel-making.  The  Scandi- 
navian lands,  Germany,  Italy,  England  and  Spain, 
all  have  felt  the  leadership  of  France  in  this  regard 
and  hence  any  attempt  to  sketch  the  history  of  the 
Novel  on  English  soil,  would  ignore  causes,  that  did 
not  acknowledge  the  Gallic  debt. 

It  may  also  be  remarked  that  the  method  em- 
ployed in  the  following  pages  necessarily  excludes 
many  figures  of  no  slight  importance  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  English  fiction.  There  are  books  a-plenty 
dealing  with  these  secondary  personalities,  often 
significant  as  links  in  the  chain  and  worthy  of  study 
were  the  purpose  to  present  the  complete  history  of 
the  Novel.  By  centering  upon  indubitable  masters, 
the  principles  illustrated  both  by  the  lesser  and 
larger  writers  will,  it  is  hoped,  be  brought  home  with 
equal  if  not  greater  force. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Fiction    and    the    No^'EL 1 

II.     Eighteenth    Century    Beginnings:    Richardson  23 

III.  Eighteenth  Century  Beginnings:  Fielding       .  48 

IV.  Developments:  Smollett,  Stebne    and  Others   .  72 
/^V.     Realism:   Jane    Austen 102 

^<^VI.    Modern   Romanticism:   Scott 123 

yVII.     French  Influence 150 

YIII.     Dickens 175 

IX.     Thackeray 195 

,/     X.     George   Eliot 218 

y/X.1.    Trollope  and  Others 244 

yXII.     Hardy  and  Meredith 262 

XIII.  Stevenson 299 

XIV.  The  American  Contribution 313 

Index 333 


MASTERS    OF    THE    ENGLISH 
NOVEL 

CHAPTER  I 
FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL 

All  the  world  loves  a  story  as  it  does  a  lover. 
It  is  small  wonder  then  that  stories  have  been 
told  since  man  walked  erect  and  long  before 
transmitted  records.  Fiction,  a  conveniently  broad 
term  to  cover  all  manner  of  story-telling,  is  a  hoary 
thing  and  within  historical  limits  we  can  but  get 
a  glimpse  of  its  activity.  Because  it  is  so  diverse 
a  thing,  it  may  be  regarded  in  various  ways :  as  a 
literary  form,  a  social  manifesbation,  a  comment 
upon  life.  Main  emphasis  in  this  book  is  placed 
upon  its  recent  development  on  English  soil  under 
the  more  restrictive  name  of  Novel ;  and  it  is  the 
intention,  in  tracing  the  work  of  representative 
novel  writers,  to  show  how  the  Novel  has  become 
in  some  sort  a  special  modern  mode  of  expression 
and  of  opinion,  truly  reflective  of  the  Zeitgeist. 

The  social  and  human  element  in  a  literary  phe- 
nomenon is  what  gives  general  interest  and  includes 
it  as  part  of  the  culturgeschichte  of  a  people.     This 


2         MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

interest  is  jis  far  removed  from  tliut  of  the  literary 
specialist  taken  up  with  questions  of  morphology  and 
method,  as  it  is  from  the  unthinking  rapture  of  the 
boarding-school  Miss  who  finds  a  current  hook  "  per- 
fectly lovely,"  and  skips  intrepidly  to  the  last  page 
to  see  how  it  is  coming  out.  Thoughtfid  people 
are  coming  to  feel  that  fiction  is  only  frivolous  when 
the  reader  brings  a  frivolous  mind  or  makes  a  frivo- 
lous choice.  While  it  will  always  be  legitimate  to 
turn  to  fiction  for  innocent  amusement,  since  the 
peculiar  property  of  all  art  is  to  give  pleasure, 
the  day  has  been  reached  when  it  is  recognized  as 
part  of  our  culture  to  read  good  fiction,  to  realize 
the  value  and  importance  of  the  Novel  in  modern 
education;  and  conversely,  to  reprimand  the  older, 
narrow  notion  that  the  habit  means  self-indulgence 
and  a  waste  of  time.  Nor  can  we  close  our  eyes  to 
the  tyrannous  domination  of  fiction  to-day,  for  good 
or  bad.  It  has  worn  seven-league  boots  of  progress 
the  past  generation.  So  early  as  1862,  Sainte-Beuve 
declared  in  conversation :  "  Everything  is  being  grad- 
ually merged  into  the  novel.  There  is  such  a  vast 
scope  and  the  form  lends  itself  to  everything." 
Prophetic  words,  more  than  fulfilled  since  they  were 
spoken. 

Of  the  three  main  ways  of  story-telling,  by  the 
epic  poem,  the  drama  and  prose  fiction,  the  epic 
seems  to  be  the  oldest;  poetry,  indeed,  being  the 
natural  form  of  expression  among  primitive  peoples. 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  S 

The  comparative  study  of  literature  shows  that  so 
far  as  written  records  go,  we  may  not  surely  ascribe 
precedence  in  time  either  to  fiction  or  the  drama. 
The  testimony  varies  in  different  nations.  But  if 
the  name  fiction  be  allowed  for  a  Biblical  narrative 
like  the  Book  of  Ruth,  which  in  the  sense  of  imagina- 
tive and  literary  handling  of  historical  material  it 
certainly  is,  the  great  antiquity  of  the  form  may 
be  conceded.  Long  before  the  written  or  printed 
word,  we  may  safely  say,  stories  were  recited  in 
Oriental  deserts,  yarns  were  spun  as  ships  heaved 
over  the  seas,  and  sagas  spoken  beside  hearth  fires 
far  in  the  frozen  north.  Prose  narratives,  epic  in 
theme  or  of  more  local  import,  were  handed  down  from 
father  to  son,  transmitted  from  family  to  family, 
through  the  exercise  of  a  faculty  of  memory  that 
now,  in  a  day  when  labor-saving  devices  have  almost 
atrophied  its  use,  '  seems  well  nigh  miraculous. 
Prose  story-telling,  which  allows  of  ample  descrip- 
tion, elbow  room  for  digression,  indefinite  extension 
and  variation  from  the  original  kernel  of  plot,  lends 
itself  admirably  to  the  imaginative  needs  of  human- 
ity early  or  late. 

With  the  English  race,  fiction  began  to  take  con- 
structural  shape  and  definiteness  of  purpose  in  Eliz- 
abethan days.  Up  to  the  sixteenth  century  the 
tales  were  either  told  in  verse,  in  the  epic  form  of 
Beowulf  or  in  the  shrunken  epic  of  a  thirteenth  cen- 
tury ballad  like  "  King  Horn  " ;  in  the  verse  narra- 


i         MASTl'.HS  Ol'Tlil,    KNCil.lSlI   NOVEL 

tivos  of  C'haurcr  or  I  ho  poctii-  luusin^s  of  Spenser. 
Or  else  tliev  were  a  portion  of  that  prose  romance 
of  chivalry-  wliicli  was  vastly  cultivated  in  the  middle 
ages,  especially  in  I'rancc  and  Spain,  and  of  which 
we  have  a  doughty  exemplar  in  the  Morte  D'Arthur, 
which  dates  nearly  a  century  before  Shakspere's 
day.  Loose  construction  and  no  attempt  to  deal 
with  the  close  eye  of  observation,  characterize  these 
earlier  romances,  which  were  in  the  main  conglomer- 
ates of  story  using  the  double  appeal  of  love  and 
war. 

But  at  a  time  when  the  drama  was  paramount  in 
popularity,  when  the  young  Shakspere  was  writing 
his  early  comedies,  fiction,  which  was  in  the  fulness 
of  time  to  conquer  the  play  form  as  a  popular 
vehicle  of  story-telling,  began  to  rear  its  head.  The 
loosely  constructed,  rambling  prose  romances  of 
Lyly  of  euphuistic  fame,  the  prose  pastorals  of 
Lodge  from  wliich  model  Shakspere  made  his  for- 
est drama,  "  As  You  Like  It,"  the  picaresque,  harum- 
scarum  story  of  adventure,  "  Jack  Wilton,"  the  pro- 
totype of  later  books  like  "  Gil  Bias  "  and  "  Robin- 
son Crusoe," — these  were  the  early  attempts  to  give 
prose  narration  a  closer  knitting,  a  more  organic 
form. 

But  all  such  tentative  striving  was  only  prepara- 
tion ;  fiction  in  the  sense  of  more  or  less  formless 
prose  narration,  was  written  for  about  two  centuries 
without  the  production  of  what  may  be  callecl  the 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  5 

Novel  in  the  modern  meaning  of  the  word.  The 
broader  name  fiction  may  properly  be  applied,  since, 
as  we  shall  see,  all  novels  are  fiction,  but  all  fiction 
is  by  no  means  Novels.  The  whole  development  of 
the  Novel,  indeed,  is  embraced  within  little  more 
than  a  century  and  a  half;  from  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  the  present  time.  The  term 
Novel  is  more  definite,  more  specific  than  the  fiction 
out  of  which  it  evolved;  therefore,  we  must  ask  our- 
selves wherein  lies  the  essential  difference.  Light  is 
thrown  by  the  early  use  of  the  word  in  critical  ref- 
erence in  English.  In  reading  the  following  from 
Steele's  "  Tender  Husband,"  we  are  made  to  realize 
that  the  stark  meaning  of  the  term  implies  some- 
thing new:  social  interest,  a  sense  of  social  solidarity: 
*'  Our  amours  can't  furnish  out  a  Romance ;  they'll 
make  a  very  pretty  Novel." 

This  clearly  marks  a  distinction:  it  gives  a  hint 
as  to  the  departure  made  by  Richardson  in  1742, 
when  he  published  "  Pamela."  It  is  not  strictly  the 
earliest  discrimination  between  the  Novel  and  the 
older  romance;  for  the  dramatist  Congreve  at  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century  shows  his  knowledge 
of  the  distinction.  And,  indeed,  there  are  hints  of 
it  in  Elizabethan  criticism  of  such  early  attempts  as 
those  of  Lyly,  Nast,  Lodge  and  others.  Moreover, 
the  student  of  criticism  as  it  deals  with  the  Novel 
must  also  expect  to  meet  with  a  later  confusion  of 
nomenclature;  the  word  being  loosely  applied  to  any 


6         MASTERS  OF  TIIK  ENC.I.TSII  NOVEL 

t^po  of  proso  fiction  in  coiitriist  witli  the  sliort  story 
or  tiilo.  But  here,  at  an  early  date,  the  severance 
is  phiinly  indicated  between  the  study  of  contempo- 
rary society  fuid  the  elder  romance  of  heroism,  super- 
naturulisni,  and  improbability.  It  is  a  difference 
not  so  much  of  theme  as  of  view-point,  method  and 
intention. 

For  underlying  this  attempt  to  come  closer  to 
humanity  through  the  medium  of  a  form  of  fiction, 
is  to  be  detected  an  added  interest  in  personality  for 
its  own  sake.  During  the  eighteenth  century,  com- 
monly described  as  the  Teacup  Times,  an  age  of 
powder  and  patches,  of  etiquette,  epigram  and  sur- 
face polish,  there  developed  a  keener  sense  of  the 
value  of  the  individual,  of  the  sanctity  of  the  ego, 
a  faint  prelude  to  the  note  that  was  to  become  so 
resonant  in  the  nineteenth  century,  sounding  through 
all  the  activities  of  man.  Various  manifestations  in 
the  civilization  of  Queen  Anne  and  the  first  Georges 
illustrate  the  new  tendency. 

One  such  is  the  coffee  house,  prototype  of  the 
bewildering  club  life  of  our  own  day.  The  eighteenth 
century  coffee  house,  where  the  men  of  fashion  and 
affairs  foregathered  to  exchange  social  news  over 
their  glasses,  was  an  organization  naturally  fostering 
altruism ;  at  least,  it  tended  to  cultivate  a  feeling  for 
social  relations. 

Again,  the  birth  of  the  newspaper  with  the  Spec- 
tator Papers  in  the  early  years  of  the  century,  is 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  7 

another  such  sign  of  the  times :  the  newspaper  being 
one  of  the  great  social  bonds  of  humanity,  for  good 
or  bad,  linking  man  to  man,  race  to  race  in  the 
common,  well-nigh  instantaneous  nexus  of  sympathy. 
The  influence  of  the  press  at  the  time  of  a  San 
Francisco  or  Messina  horror  is  apparent  to  all ;  but 
its  effect  in  furnishing  tlie  psychology  of  a  business 
panic  is  perhaps  no  less  potent  though  not  so  obvious. 
When  Addison  and  Steele  began  their  genial  con- 
versations thrice  a  week  with  their  fellow  citizens, 
they  little  dreamed  of  the  power  they  set  a-going  in 
the  world ;  for  here  was  the  genesis  of  modern  journal- 
ism. And  whatever  its  abuses  and  degradations, 
the  fourth  estate  is  certainly  one  of  the  very  few 
widely  operative  educational  forces  to-day,  and  has 
played  an  important  part  in  spreading  the  idea  of 
the  brotherhood  of  man. 

That  the  essay  and  its  branch  form,  the  character 
sketch,  both  found  in  the  Spectator  Papers,  were 
contributory  to  the  Novel's  development,  is  sure.  The 
essay  set  a  new  model  for  easy,  colloquial  speech: 
just  the  manner  for  fiction  which  was  to  report  the 
accent  of  contemporary  society  in  its  average  of 
utterance.  And  the  sketch,  seen  in  its  delightful 
efflorescence  in  the  Sir  Roger  De  Coverly  papers 
series  by  Addison,  is  fiction  in  a  sense:  differing 
therefrom  in  its  slighter  framework,  and  the  aim 
of  the  writer,  which  first  of  all  is  the  delicate  de- 
lineation of  personality,  not  plot  and  the  study  of 


8      MAS ri: US  or  'riii',  i.noi.isii  novel 

the  social  conijilcx.  'riuru  is  tlic  }il)siiu'c  of"  plot 
which  is  the  naturul  outcome  of  such  lack  of  story 
interest.  A  wide  survey  of  the  English  essay  from 
its  inception  with  Bacon  in  the  early  seventeenth 
century  will  im])ress  the  inquix'cr  with  its  fluid  nature 
and  natural  outflow  into  full-fledged  fiction.  The 
essay  has  a  way,  as  Taine  says,  of  turning  "  spon- 
taneously to  fiction  and  portraiture."  And  as  it  is 
diflicult,  in  the  light  of  evolution,  to  put  the  finger 
on  the  line  separating  man  from  the  lower  order  of 
animal  life,  so  is  it  difficult  sometimes  to  say  just 
where  the  essay  stops  and  the  Novel  begins.  There 
is  perhaps  no  hard-and-fast  line. 

Consider  Dr.  Holmes'  "  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast 
Table,"  for  example;  is  it  essay  or  fiction.-^  There 
is  a  definite  though  slender  story  interest  and  idea, 
yet  since  the  framework  of  story  is  really  for  the 
purpose  of  hanging  thereon  the  genial  essayist's 
dissertations  on  life,  we  may  decide  that  the  book 
is  primarily  essay,  the  most  charmingly  personal, 
egoistic  of  literary  forms.  The  essay  "  slightly 
dramatized,"  Mr.  Howells  happily  characterizes  it. 
This  form  then  must  be  reckoned  with  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  and  borne  in  mind  as  contributory  all 
along  in  the  subsequent  development,  as  we  try  to  get 
a  clear  idea  of  the  qualities  which  demark  and  limit 
the  Novel, 

Again,  the  theater  was  an  institution  doing  its 
share  to  knit  social  feeling;  as  indeed  it  had  been 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  9 

in  Elizabethan  days:  offering  a  place  where  many 
might  be  moved  by  the  one  thought,  the  one  emotion, 
personal  variations  being  merged  in  what  is  now 
called  mob  psychology,  a  function  for  centuries  also 
exercised  by  the  Church.  Nor  should  the  function 
of  the  playhouse  as  a  visiting-place  be  overlooked. 
So  too  the  Novel  came  to  express  most  inclusively 
among  the  literary  forms  this  more  vivid  realization 
of  meum  and  iuum;  the  worth  of  me  and  my  in- 
tricate and  inevitable  relations  to  you,  both  of  us 
caught  in  the  coils  of  that  organism  dubbed  society, 
and  willingly,  with  no  Rousseau-like  desire  to  escape 
and  set  up  for  individualists.  The  Novel  in  its 
treatment  of  personality  began  to  teach  that  the 
stone  thrown  into  the  water  makes  circles  to  the 
uttermost  bounds  of  the  lake;  that  the  little  rift 
within  the  lute  makes  the  whole  music  mute ;  that 
we  are  all  members  of  the  one  body.  This  germinal 
principle  was  at  root  a  profoundly  true  and  noble 
one ;  it  serves  to  distinguish  modem  fiction  philo- 
sophically from  all  that  is  earlier,  and  it  led  the  late 
Sidney  Lanier,  in  the  well-known  book  on  this  sub- 
ject, to  base  the  entire  development  upon  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  idea  of  personality.  The  Novel  seems 
to  have  been  the  special  literary  instrument  in  the 
eighteenth  century  for  the  propagation  of  altruism ; 
here  lies  its  deepest  significance.  It  was  a  baptism 
which  promised  great  things  for  the  lusty  young 
form. 


10       MASTl.RS  Ol"  TIIR   ENGLISH    NOVEL 

We  are  now  nady  Joi'  »>■  fnir  workiiifif  definition  of 
the  nioilern  Novel.  It  means  a  study  of"  eontenijjorary 
society  with  an  implied  sympathetic  interest,  and,  it 
may  be  added,  with  special  reference  to  love  as  a 
motor  force,  simply  because  love  it  is  which  binds 
together  human  beings  in  their  social  relations. 

This  aim  sets  off  the  Novel  in  contrast  with  past 
fiction  which  exhibits  a  free  admixture  of  myth  and 
marvel,  of  creatures  human,  dcmi-human  and  super- 
natural, with  all  time  or  no  time  for  the  enactment 
of  its  events.  The  modern  story  puts  its  note  of 
emphasis  upon  character  that  is  contemporary  and 
average ;  and  thus  makes  a  democratic  appeal  against 
that  older  appeal  which,  dealing  with  exceptional 
personages — kings,  leaders,  allegorical  abstractions 
— is  naturally  aristocratic. 

There  was  something,  it  would  appear,  in  the 
English  genius  which  favored  a  form  of  literature — 
or  modification  of  an  existing  form — allowing  for 
a  more  truthful  representation  of  society,  a  criticism 
(in  the  Arnoldian  sense)  of  the  passing  show.  The 
elder  romance  finds  its  romantic  effect,  as  a  rule, 
in  the  unusual,  the  strange  and  abnormal  aspects 
of  life,  not  so  much  seen  of  the  eye  as  imagined 
of  the  mind  or  fancy.  Hence,  romance  is  historically 
contrasted  with  reality,  with  many  unfortunate  re- 
sults when  we  come  to  its  modern  applications. 
The  issue  has  been  a  Babel-like  mixture  of  terms. 

Or  when  the  bizarre  or  supernatural  was  not  the 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  11 

basis  of  appeal,  it  was  found  in  the  sickly  and  ab- 
surd treatment  of  the  amatory  passion,  quite  as  far 
removed  from  the  every-day  experience  of  normal 
human  nature.  It  was  this  kind  of  literature,  with 
the  French  La  Calprenede  as  its  high  priest, 
which  my  Lord  Chesterfield  had  in  mind  when  he 
wrote  to  his  son  under  date  of  1752,  Old  Style: 
"  It  is  most  astonishing  that  there  ever  could  have 
been  a  people  idle  enough  to  write  such  endless 
heaps  of  the  same  stuff.  It  was,  however,  the  occu- 
pation of  thousands  in  the  last  century ;  and  is  still 
the  private  though  disavowed  amusement  of  young 
girls  and  sentimental  ladies."  The  chief  trait  of 
these  earlier  fictions,  besides  their  mawkishness,  is 
their  almost  incredible  long-windedness ;  they  have 
the  long  breath,  as  the  French  say ;  and  it  may  be 
confessed  that  the  great,  pioneer  eighteenth  century 
novels,  foremost  those  of  Richardson,  possess  a 
leisurcliness  of  movement  which  is  an  inheritance  of 
the  romantic  past  when  men,  both  fiction  writers 
and  readers,  seem  to  have  Time ;  they  look  back  to 
Lyly,  and  forward  (since  history  repeats  itself  here), 
to  Henry  James.  The  condensed,  breathless  fiction 
of  a  Kipling  is  the  more  logical  evolution. 

Certainly,  the  English  were  innovators  in  this  field, 
exercising  a  direct  and  potent  influence  upon  foreign 
fiction,  especially  that  of  France  and  Germany;  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  the  novels  of  Rich- 
ardson and  Fielding,  pioneers,  founders  of  the  Eng- 


12      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

llsli  Novel,  offered  Europe  !i  type.  If  one  reads  tlie 
French  fietionists  before  Uicluirdson — Mudanic  de 
La  Fayette,  Le  Sage,  Prevost  and  Rousseau — one 
speedily  discovers  that  they  did  not  write  novels 
in  the  modern  sense ;  tlie  last  named  took  a  cue 
from  Richardson,  to  be  sure,  in  his  handling  of 
sentiment,  but  remained  an  essayist,  nevertheless. 
And  the  greater  Goethe  also  felt  and  acknowledged 
the  Englishman's  example.  Testimonies  from  tlie 
stor^'-makers  of  other  lands  are  frequent  to  the 
effect  upon  them  of  these  English  pioneers  of  fiction. 
It  will  be  seen  from  this  brief  statement  of  the 
kind  of  fiction  essayed  by  the  founders  of  the  Novel, 
that  their  tendency  was  towards  what  has  come  to 
be  called  "  realism "  in  modern  fiction  literature. 
One  uses  this  sadly  overworked  term  with  a  certain 
sinking  of  the  heart,  yet  it  seems  unavoidable.  The 
very  fact  that  the  words  "  realism  "  and  "  romance  " 
have  become  so  hackneyed  in  critical  pai'lance,  makes 
it  sure  that  they  indicate  a  genuine  distinction.  As 
the  Novel  has  developed,  ramified  and  taken  on  a 
hundred  guises  of  manifestation,  and  as  criticism 
has  striven  to  keep  pace  with  such  a  growth,  it  is 
not  strange  that  a  confusion  of  nomenclature  should 
have  arisen.  But  underneath  whatever  misunder- 
standings, the  original  distinction  is  clear  enough 
and  useful  to  make:  the  modern  Novel  in  its  be- 
ginning did  introduce  a  more  truthful  representation 
of  human   life   than    had   obtained   in   the   romantic 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  13 

fiction  deriving  from  the  medieval  stories.  The 
term  "  reahsm  "  as  first  applied  was  suitably  de- 
scriptive ;  it  is  only  with  the  subsequent  evolution 
that  so  simple  a  word  has  taken  on  subtler  shades 
and  esoteric  implications. 

It  may  be  roundly  asserted  that  from  the  first 
the  English  Novel  has  stood  for  truth ;  that  it  has 
grown  on  the  whole  more  truthful  with  each  genera- 
tion, as  our  conception  of  truth  in  literature  has 
been  widened  and  become  a  nobler  one.  The  obliga- 
tion of  literature  to  report  life  has  been  felt  with 
increasing  sensitiveness.  In  the  particulars  of  ap- 
pearance, speech,  setting  and  action  the  characters 
of  English  fiction  to-day  produce  a  semblance  of 
life  which  adds  tenfold  to  its  power.  To  compare 
the  dialogue  of  modern  masters  like  Hardy,  Steven- 
son, Kipling  and  Howells  with  the  best  of  the  earlier 
writers  serves  to  bring  the  assertion  home ;  the  differ- 
ence is  immense;  it  is  the  difference  between  the 
idiom  of  life  and  the  false-literary  tone  of  imitations 
of  life  which,  with  all  their  merits,  are  still  self- 
conscious  and  inapt.  And  as  the  earlier  idiom  was 
imperfect,  so  was  the  psychology ;  the  study  of 
motives  in  relation  to  action  has  grown  steadily 
broader,  more  penetrating ;  the  rich  complexity  of 
human  beings  has  been  recognized  more  and  more, 
where  of  old  the  simple  assumption  that  all  mankind 
falls  into  the  two  great  contrasted  groups  of  the 
good  and  the  bad,  was  quite  sufficient.     And,  as  a 


I  fc       iMASTKUS  or  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

iiiitural  outcome  of  such  an  casv-ffoin^  pliilosophy, 
the  study  of  life  was  rudimoutary  and  partial;  you 
could  always  tell  how  I  he  villain  would  jump  and 
were  comfortable  in  the  assurance  that  the  curtain 
should  ring  down  upon  "  and  so  they  were  married 
and  lived  liappily  ever  afterwards." 

In  contrast,  to-day  human  nature  is  depicted  in 
tlie  Novel  as  a  curious  compound  of  contradictory 
impulses  and  passions,  and  instead  of  the  clear-cut 
separation  of  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  we  look  forth 
upon  a  vast,  indiscriminate  horde  of  humanity  whose 
color,  broadly  surveyed,  seems  a  very  neutral  gray, 
— neither  deep  black  nor  shining  white.  The  white- 
robed  saint  is  banished  along  with  the  devil  incar- 
nate; those  who  respect  their  art  would  relegate 
such  crudities  to  Bowery  melodrama.  And  while 
we  may  allow  an  excess  of  zeal  in  this  matter,  even 
a  confusion  of  values,  there  can  be  no  question  that 
an  added  dignity  has  come  to  the  Novel  in  these 
latter  days,  because  it  has  striven  with  so  much 
seriousness  of  purpose  to  depict  life  in  a  more  in- 
terpretative way.  It  has  seized  for  a  motto  the 
Veritas  nos  liberavit  of  the  ancient  philosopher. 
The  elementary  psychology  of  the  past  has  been 
transferred  to  the  stage  drama,  justifying  Mr. 
Shaw's  description  of  it  as  "  the  last  sanctuary  of 
unreality'. "  And  even  in  the  theater,  the  truth  de- 
manded in  fiction  for  more  than  a  century,  is  fast 
finding   a  place,  and  play-making,  sensitive  to   the 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  15 

new  desire,  is  changing  in  this  respect  before  our 
eyes. 

However,  with  the  good  has  come  evil  too.  In 
the  modern  seeking  for  so-called  truth,  the  nuda 
"Veritas  has  in  some  hands  become  shameless  as  well, — 
a  fact  amply  illustrated  in  the  following  treatment 
of  principles  and  personalities. 

The  Novel  in  the  hands  of  these  eighteenth  century 
writers  also  struck  a  note  of  the  democratic, — a  note 
that  has  sounded  ever  louder  until  the  present  day, 
when  fiction  is  by  far  the  most  democratic  of  the 
literary  forms  (unless  we  now  must  include  the 
drama  in  such  a  designation).  The  democratic  ideal 
has  become  at  once  an  instinct,  a  principle  and  a 
fashion.  Richardson  in  his  "  Pamela  "  did  a  revo- 
lutionary thing  in  making  a  kitchen  wench  his  hero- 
ine; English  fiction  had  previously  assumed  that  for 
its  polite  audience  only  the  fortunes  of  Algernon 
and  Angelina  could  be  followed  decorously  and  give 
fit  pleasure.  His  innovation,  symptomatic  of  the  time, 
by  no  means  pleased  an  aristocratic  on-looker  like 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  who  wrote  to  a 
friend :  "  The  confounding  of  all  ranks  and  making 
a  jest  of  order  has  long  been  growing  in  England; 
and  I  perceive  by  the  books  you  sent  me,  has  made 
a  very  considerable  progress.  The  heroes  and  hero- 
ines of  the  age  are  cobblers  and  kitchen  wenches. 
Perhaps  you  will  say,  I  should  not  take  my  ideas 
of   the    manners    of   the    times    from    such    trifling 


h;     mas'1'i:us  oi"  'iiii:  i.nci.tsii  novkl 

Hutliors;  l)iit  it  is  inort.-  truly  to  he  fouiul  ;imoii^ 
them,  tlmn  from  any  liistori.ui ;  as  tliiy  write  inertly 
to  get  nionev,  tliey  always  fall  into  the  notions  that 
are  most  acceptable  to  the  j)rcsent  taste.  It  has 
lon^  been  the  endeavor  of  our  English  writers  to 
represent  people  of  quality  as  the  vilest  and  silliest 
part  of  the  nation,  being  (generally)  very  low-honi 
themselves  " — a  (juotation  deliriously  commingled  of 
prejudice  and  worldl}-  wisdom. 

But  Richardson,  who  began  his  career  by  writing 
amatory  epistles  for  serving  maids,  realized  (and 
showed  his  genius  thereby),  that  if  the  hard  fortunes 
and  eventful  triumph  of  the  humble  Pamela  could 
but  be  sympathetically  portrayed,  the  interest  on 
the  part  of  his  aristocratic  audience  was  certain  to 
follow, — as    the   sequel   proved. 

He  knew  that  because  Pamela  was  a  human  being 
she  might  therefore  be  made  interesting;  he  adopted, 
albeit  unconsciously,  the  Terentian  motto  that  noth- 
ing human  should  be  alien  from  the  interests  of  his 
readers.  And  as  the  Novel  developed,  this  interest 
not  only  increased  in  intensity,  but  ever  spread  until 
it  depicted  with  truth  and  sympathy  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men.  The  typical  novelist  to-day  pre- 
fers to  leave  the  beaten  highway  and  go  into  the 
by-ways  for  his  characters ;  his  interest  is  with  the 
humble  of  the  earth,  the  outcast  and  alien,  the  under 
dog  in  the  social  struggle.  It  has  become  well-nigh 
a  fashion,  a  fad,  to  deal  with  these  picturesque  and 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  17 

once  unexploited  elements  of  the  human  passion- 
play. 

This  interest  does  not  stop  even  at  man ;  influenced 
by  modern  conceptions  of  life,  it  overleaps  the  line 
of  old  supposed  to  be  impassable,  and  now  includes 
the  lower  order  of  living  things :  animals  have  come 
into  their  own  and  a  Kipling  or  a  London  gives  us 
the  psychology  of  brutekind  as  it  has  never  been 
drawn  before — from  the  view-point  of  the  animal 
himself.  Our  little  brothers  of  the  air,  the  forest 
and  the  field  are  depicted  in  such  wise  that  the  world 
returns  to  a  feeling  which  swelled  the  heart  of  St. 
Francis  centuries  ago,  as  he  looked  upon  the  birds 
he  loved  and  thus  addressed  them : 

"  And  he  entered  the  field  and  began  to  preach 
to  the  birds  which  were  on  the  ground ;  and  suddenly 
those  which  were  in  the  trees  came  to  him  and  as 
many  as  there  were  they  all  stood  quietly  until  Saint 
Francis  had  done  preaching;  and  even  then  they  did 
not  depart  until  such  time  as  he  had  given  them 
his  blessing;  and  St.  Francis,  moving  among  them, 
touched  them  with  his  cape,  but  not  one  moved." 

It  is  because  this  modern  form  of  fiction  upon 
which  we  fix  the  name  Novel  to  indicate  its  new 
features  has  seized  the  idea  of  personality,  has  stood 
for  truth  and  grown  ever  more  democratic,  that  it 
has  attained  to  the  immense  power  which  marks 
it  at  the  present  time.  It  is  justified  by  historical 
facts ;  it  has  become  that  literary  form  most  closely 


IS      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

revealing  the  contours  of  life,  most  expressive  of 
its  average  experience,  most  sympathetic  to  its  heart- 
throb. The  thought  should  prevent  us  from  regard- 
ing it  as  merely  the  syllabub  of  the  literary  feast,  a 
kind  of  after-dinner  condiment.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  assume  the  total  depravity  of  current  taste,  in 
order  to  account  for  the  tyranny  of  this  latest-born 
child  of  fiction.  In  the  study  of  individual  writers 
and  developing  schools  and  tendencies,  it  will  be  well 
to  keep  in  mind  these  underlying  principles  of 
growth:  personality,  truth  and  democracy;  a  con- 
ception sure  to  provide  the  story-maker  with  a  new 
function,  a  new  ideal.  The  distinguished  French 
critic  Brunetiere  has  said:  "The  novelist  in  reality 
is  nothing  more  than  a  witness  whose  evidence  should 
rival  that  of  the  historian  in  precision  and  trust- 
worthiness. We  look  to  him  to  teach  us  literally 
to  see.  We  read  his  novels  merely  with  a  view  to 
finding  out  in  them  those  aspects  of  existence  which 
escape  us,  owing  to  the  very  hurry  and  stir  of  life, 
an  attitude  we  express  by  saying  that  for  a  novel 
to  be  recognized  as  such,  it  must  offer  an  historical 
or  documentary  value,  a  value  precise  and  deter- 
mined, particular  and  local,  and  as  well,  a  general 
and  lasting  psychologic  value  or  significance." 

It  may  be  added,  that  while  in  the  middle  eighteenth 
century  the  novel-writing  was  tentative  and  hardly 
more  than  an  avocation,  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth, 
it  had  become  a  fine  art  and  a  profession.     It  did 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  19 

not  occur  to  Richardson,  serious-minded  man  that 
he  was,  that  he  was  formulating-  a  new  art  canon 
for  fiction.  Indeed,  the  English  author  takes  him- 
self less  and  less  seriously  as  we  go  back  in  time. 
It  was  bad  form  to  be  literary  when  Voltaire  visited 
Congreve  and  found  a  fine  gentleman  where  he 
sought  a  writer  of  genius :  complaining  therefore 
that  fine  gentlemen  came  cheap  in  Paris ;  what  he 
wished  to  see  was  the  creator  of  the  great  comedies. 
In  the  same  fashion,  we  find  Horace  Walpole,  who 
dabbled  in  letters  all  his  days  and  made  it  really 
his  chief  interest,  systematically  underrating  the  pro- 
fessional writers  of  his  day,  to  laud  a  brilliant  ama- 
teur who  like  himself  desired  the  plaudits  of  the 
game  without  obeying  its  exact  rules.  He  looked 
askance  at  the  fiction-makers  Richardson  and  Field- 
ing, because  they  did  not  move  in  the  polite  circles 
frequented  by  himself. 

The  same  key  is  struck  by  lively  Fanny  Burney 
in  reporting  a  meeting  with  a  languishing  lady  of 
fashion  who  had  perpetrated  a  piece  of  fiction  with 
the  alarming  title  of  "  The  Mausoleum  of  Julia  " : 
"  My  sister  intends,  said  Lady  Say  and  Sele,  to 
print  her  Mausoleum,  just  for  her  own  friends  and 
acquaintances." 

"  Yes  ?  said  Lady  Hawke,  I  have  never  printed 

yet." 

And  a  little  later,  the  same  spirit  is  exhibited  by 
Jane  Austen  when  Madame  de  Sevigne  sought  her: 


CO       MASTKHS  or    THK   KNGLISII   NOVEL 

Miss  AusttMi  suppressed  the  storj-makcr,  wisliinrj 
to  be  taken  first  of  all  for  what  she  was:  a  country 
gentlewoman  of  unexceptionable  connections.  Even 
Walter  Scott  and  Byron  plainly  exhibit  this  dislike 
to  be  reckoned  as  paid  writers,  men  whose  support 
came  by  the  pen.  In  short,  literary  professionalism 
reflected  on  gentility.  We  have  changed  all  that 
with  a  vengeance  and  can  hardly  understand  the 
earlier  sentiment;  but  this  change  of  attitude  has 
carried  with  it  inevitably  the  artistic  advancement 
of  modem  fiction.  For  if  anything  is  certain  it  is 
that  only  professional  skill  can  be  relied  upon  to 
perfect  an  art  form.  The  amateur  may  possess  gift, 
even  genius ;  but  we  must  look  to  the  professional 
for  technique. 

One  other  influence,  hardly  less  effective  in  molding 
the  Novel  than  those  already  touched  upon,  is  found 
in  the  increasing  importance  of  woman  as  a  central 
factor  in  society;  indeed,  holding  the  key  to  the 
social  situation.  The  drama  of  our  time,  in  so  fre- 
quently making  woman  the  protagonist  of  the  piece,, 
testifies,  as  does  fiction,  to  this  significant  fact: 
woman,  in  the  social  and  economic  readjustment  that 
has  come  to  her,  or  better,  which  she  is  still  under- 
going, has  become  so  much  more  dominant  in  her 
social  relations,  that  any  form  of  literature  truth- 
fully mirroring  the  society  of  the  modern  world  must 
regard  her  as  of  potent  efficiency.  And  this  is  so 
quite  apart  from  the  consideration  that  women  make 


FICTION  AND  THE  NOVEL  21 

up  to-day  the  novelist's  largest  audience,  and  that, 
moreover,  the  woman  writer  of  fiction  is  in  numbers 
and  popularity  a  rival  of  men. 

It  would  scarcely  be  too  much  to  see  a  unifying 
principle  in  the  evolution  of  the  modern  Novel,  in 
the  fact  that  the  first  example  in  the  literature  was 
Pamela,  the  study  of  a  woman,  while  in  representa- 
tive latter-day  studies  like  "  Tess  of  the  D'Urber- 
villes,"  "The  House  of  Mirth,"  "Trilby"  and 
"  The  Testing  of  Diana  Mallory "  we  again  have 
studies  of  women;  the  purpose  alike  in  time  past  or 
present  being  to  fix  the  attention  upon  a  human 
being  whose  fate  is  sensitively,  subtly  operative  for 
good  or  ill  upon  a  society  at  large.  It  is  no  accident 
then,  that  woman  is  so  often  the  central  figure  of 
fiction :  it  means  more  than  that,  love  being  the 
solar  passion  of  the  race,  she  naturally  is  involved. 
Rather  does  it  mean  fiction's  recognition  of  her  as 
the  creature  of  the  social  biologist,  exercising  her 
ancient  function  amidst  all  the  changes  and  shifting 
ideas  of  successive  generations.  Whatever  her  su- 
perficial changes  under  the  urge  of  the  time-spirit, 
Woman,  to  a  thoughtful  eye,  sits  like  the  Sphinx 
above  the  drifting  sands,  silent,  secret,  powerful  and 
obscure,  bent  only  on  her  great  purposive  errand 
whose  end  is  the  bringing  forth  of  that  Overman 
who  shall  rule  the  world.  With  her  immense  bio- 
logic mission,  seemingly  at  war  with  her  individual 
career,  and  destructive  apparently  of  that  emanci- 


'22      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

{)atioii  which  is  the  present  tlrouin  of  lier  champions, 
what  H  tv}>e,  what  a  motive  this  for  fiction,  and  in 
what  a  manifold  and  stimulating  way  is  the  Novel 
awakening  to  its  high  privilege  to  deal  with  such 
material.  In  this  view,  having  these  wider  implica- 
tions in  mind,  the  role  of  woman  in  fiction,  so  far 
from   waning,   is   but   just   begun. 

This  survey  of  historical  facts  and  marshaling  of 
a  few  important  principles  has  prepared  us,  it  may 
be  hoped,  for  a  clearer  comprehension  of  the  develop- 
mental details  that  follow.  It  is  a  complex  growth, 
but  one  vastly  interesting  and,  after  all,  explained  by 
a  few,  great  substructural  principles:  the  belief  in 
personality,  democratic  feeling,  a  love  for  truth  in 
art,  and  a  realization  of  the  power  of  modern  Woman. 
The  Novel  is  thus  an  expression  and  epitome  of  the 
societ^'  which  gave  it  birth. 


CHAPTER  II 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS: 
RICHARDSON 

There  is  some  significance  in  the  fact  that  Samuel 
Richardson,  founder  of  the  modern  novel,  was  so 
squarely  a  middle-class  citizen  of  London  town. 
Since  the  form  he  founded  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
democratic  in  its  original  motive  and  subsequent 
development,  it  was  fitting  that  the  first  shaper  of 
the  form  should  have  sympathies  not  too  exclusively 
aristocratic :  should  have  been  willing  to  draw  upon 
the  backstairs  liistory  of  the  servants'  hall  for  his 
first  heroine. 

To  be  sure,  Mr.  Richardson  had  the  not  uncom- 
mon failing  of  the  humble-bom :  he  desired  above  all, 
and  attempted  too  much,  to  depict  the  manners  of 
the  great ;  he  had  naive  aristocratical  leanings  which 
account  for  his  uncertain  tread  when  he  would  move 
with  ease  among  the  boudoirs  of  Mayfair.  Never- 
theless, in  the  honest  heart  of  him,  as  his  earliest 
novel  forever  proves,  he  felt  for  the  woes  of  those 
social  underlings  who,  as  we  have  long  since  learned, 
have  their  microcosm  faithfully  reflecting  the  greater 
world  they  serve,  and  he  did  his  best  work  in  that 

23 


'21.       MASTHRS  C)l'    I'lli:    KNCI.ISII    NOVKL 

intiinulc  portrayal  of  llic  fiiuiiiiiic  licart,  which  is 
not  of  a  class  but  t>'pically  liuiiian ;  he  knew  Clarissa 
Harlowe  quite  as  will  as  lie  did  Pamela;  both  were 
of  interest  because  they  were  women.  Tliat  acute 
contemporary',  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu, 
severely  reprimands  Richardson  for  his  vulgar  lapses 
in  painting  polite  society  and  the  high  life  he  so  im- 
perfectly knew ;  yet  in  the  very  breath  that  she  con- 
denms  "  Clarissa  Harlowe "  as  "  most  miserable 
stuff,"  confesses  that  "  she  was  such  an  old  fool  as  to 
weep  over  "  it  "  like  any  milkmaid  of  sixteen  over  the 
ballad  of  the  Lady's  Fall " — the  handsomest  kind  of 
a  compliment  under  the  circumstances.  And  with  the 
same  charming  inconsistency,  she  declares  on  the  ap- 
pearance of  "  Sir  Charles  Grandison  "  that  she 
heartily  despises  Richardson,  yet  eagerly  reads  him — 
"  nay,  sobs  over  his  works  in  the  most  scandalous 
manner." 

Richardson  was  the  son  of  a  carpenter  and  himself 
a  respected  printer,  who  by  cannily  marrying  the 
daughter  of  the  man  to  whom  he  was  apprenticed, 
and  by  diligence  in  his  vocation,  rose  to  prosperity, 
so  that  by  1754  he  became  Master  of  The  Stationers' 
Company  and  King's  Printer,  doing  besides  an  ex- 
cellent printing  business. 

As  a  boy  he  had  relieved  the  dumb  anguish  of 
serving  maids  by  the  penning  of  their  love  letters ; 
he  seemed  to  have  a  knack  at  this  vicarious  manner 
of  love-making   and   when   in    the    full   maturity   of 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    25 

fifty  years,  certain  London  publishers  requested  him 
to  write  for  them  a  narrative  which  might  stand  as 
a   model  letter   writer   from   which   country   readers 
should  know  the  right  tone,  his  early  practice  stood 
him  in  good  stead.     Using  the  epistolary  form  into 
which  he  was  to  throw  all  his  fiction,  he  produced 
^"  Pamela,"   the   first   novel   of   analysis,   in   contrast 
with  the  tale  of  adventure,  of  the  English  tongue.l 
It  is  worth  remarking  that   Richardson   wrote  this 
story  at  an  age  when  many  novelists  have  well-nigh 
completed  their  work ;  even  as  Defoe  published  his 
masterpiece,  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  at  fifty-eight.     But } 
such  forms  as  drama  and  fiction  are  the  very  ones  j 
where  ripe  maturity,  a  long  and  varied  experience 
with  the  world  and  a  trained  hand  in  the  technique  of 
the  craft,  go  for  their  full  value.      A  study  of  the 
chronology    of    novel-making   will    show   that    more^ 
acknowledged  masterpieces  were  written  after  forty  i 
than    before.        Beside    the    eighteenth    century    ex-i 
amples  one  places  George  Eliot,  who  wrote  no  fiction 
until  she  had  nearly  reached   the   alleged  dead-line 
of  mental  activity :  Browning  with  his  greatest  poem, 
"  The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  published  in  his  forty- 
eighth  year ;  Du  Maurier  turning  to  fiction  at  sixty, 
and  De  Morgan  still  later.      Fame   came   to   Rich- 
ardson then  late  in  life,  and  never  man  enjoyed  it 
more.      Ladies  with  literary  leanings  (and  the  kind 
is   independent   of  periods)    used   to   drop    into   his 
place  beyond  Temple  Bar — for  he  was  a  bookseller 


26      MASTERS  OF  THK   KNGLISII   NOVEL 

as  well  US  printer,  luid  printed  juul  sold  liis  own 
wares — to  finger  his  volumes  and  have  a  chat  about 
poor  Pamela  or  the  naughty  Lovelace  or  impeccable 
Grandison.  For  how,  in  sooth,  could  they  keep  away 
or  avoid  talking  shop  when  they  were  bursting  with 
the  books  just  read? 

And  much,  too,  did  Richardson  enjoy  the  pros- 
,  perlty  liis  stories,  as  well  as  other  ventures,  brought 
him,  so  that  he  might  move  out  Hammersmith  way 
where  William  Morris  and  Cobden  Sanderson  have 
lived  in  our  day,  and  have  a  fine  house  wherein  to 
receive  those  same  lady  callers,  who  came  in  increas- 
ing flocks  to  his  impromptu  court  where  sat  the 
prim,  cherub-faced,  elderly  little  printer.  It  is  all 
very  quaint,  like  a  Wattcau  painting  or  a  bit  of 
Dresden  china,  as  we  look  back  upon  it  through  the 
time-mists  of  a  century  and  a  half. 

In  spite  of  its  slow  movement,  the  monotony  of 
the  letter  form  and  the  terribly  utilitarian  nature 
of  its  morals,  "  Pamela  "  has  the  essentials  of  in- 
teresting fiction;  its  heroine  is  placed  in  a  plausible 
situation,  she  is  herself  life-like  and  her  struggles 
are  narrated  with  a  sympathetic  insight  into  the 
human  heart — or  better,  the  female  heart.  The  gist 
of  a  plot  so  simple  can  be  stated  in  few  words: 
Mr.  B.,  the  son  of  a  lady  who  has  benefited  Pamela 
Andrews,  a  serving  maid,  tries  to  conquer  her  virtue 
while  she  resists  all  his  attempts — including  an  ab- 
duction, Richardson^s  favorite  device — and  as  a  re- 


RICHARDSON  27 

ward  of  her  chastity,  he  condescends  to  marry  her, 
to  her  very  great  gratitude  and  delight.  The  Eng- 
lish Novel  started  out  with  a  flourish  of  trumpets 
as  to  its  moral  purpose ;  latter-day  criticism  may 
take  sides  for  or  against  the  novel-with-a-purpose, 
but  that  Richardson  justified  his  fiction  writing  upon 
moral  grounds  and  upon  those  alone  is  shown  in 
the  descriptive  title-page  of  the  tale,  too  prolix  to 
be  often  recalled  and  a  good  sample  in  its  long- 
windedness  of  the  past  compared  with  the  terse  brev- 
ity of  the  present  in  this  matter:  "Published  in 
order  to  cultivate  the  principles  of  virtue  and  re- 
ligion in  the  mind  of  youth  of  both  sexes  " ;  the 
author  of  "  Sanford  and  Merton  "  has  here  his  lit- 
erary progenitor.  The  sub-title,  "  or  Virtue  Re- 
warded," also  indicates  the  homiletic  nature  of  the 
book.  And  since  the  one  valid  criticism  against 
all  didactic  aims  in  story-telling  is  that  it  is  dull, 
Richardson,  it  will  be  appreciated,  ran  a  mighty 
risk.  But  this  he  was  able  to  escape  because  of 
the  genuine  human  interest  of  his  tales  and  the 
skill  he  displayed  with  psychologic  analysis  rather 
than  the  march  of  events.  The  close-knit,  organic 
development  of  tlio  best  of  our  modern  fiction  is 
lacking ;  leisurely  and  lax  seems  the  movement.  Mod- 
ern editions  of  "  Pamela  "  and  "  Clarissa  Harlowe  " 
are  in  the  way  of  vigorous  cutting  for  purposes  of 
condensation.  Scott  seems  swift  and  brief  when 
set  beside  Richardson.      Yet  the  slow  convolutions 


28       MASTKHS  Oi-    THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

and  iiivolutiims  servo  to  iicquuint  us  intim.'itcly  witli 
the  cli;iriu-ters  ;  dwelling  with  them  longer,  we  come 
to  know   them  bi'tter. 

It  is  {I  fault  in  the  construction  of  the  story  that 
instead  of  making  Pamela's  successful  marriage  the 
natural  climax  and  close  of  the  work,  the  author 
effects  it  long  before  the  novel  is  finished  and  then 
tries  to  hold  the  interest  by  telling  of  the  lioney- 
moon  trip  in  Italy,  her  cool  reception  by  her  husband's 
family,  involving  various  subterfuges  and  difficulties, 
and  the  gradual  moral  reform  she  was  able  to  bring 
about  in  her  spouse.  It  must  be  conceded  to  him 
that  some  capital  scenes  are  the  result  of  this  post- 
hymeneal  treatment;  that,  to  illustrate,  where  the 
haughty  sister  of  Pamela's  husband  calls  on  the 
woman  she  believes  to  be  her  husband's  mistress.  Yet 
there  is  an  effect  of  anti-climax ;  the  main  excite- 
ment— getting  Pamela  honestly  wedded — is  over. 
But  we  must  not  forget  the  moral  purpose:  Mr. 
B.'s  spiritual  regeneration  has  to  be  portrayed  be- 
fore our  very  eyes,  he  must  be  changed  from  a 
rake  into  a  model  husband  ;  and  with  Richardson,  that 
means  plenty  of  elbow-room.  There  is,  too,  some- 
thing prophetic  in  this  giving  of  ample  space  to 
post-marital  life;  it  paves  the  way  for  much  latter- 
day  probing  of  the  marriage  misery. 

The  picture  of  Mr.  B.  and  Pamela's  attitude  to- 
wards him  is  full  of  irony  for  the  modem  reader; 
here  is  a  man  who  does  all  in  his  power  to  ruin  her 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    29 

and,  finding  her  adamant,  at  last  decides  to  do  the 
next  best  thing — secure  her  by  marriage.  And  in- 
stead of  valuing  him  accordingly,  Pamela,  with  a 
kind  of  spaniel-like  fawning,  accepts  his  august  hand. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  with  Pamela  (that  is,  with 
Richardson ),Qvirtue  is  a  market  commodity  for  sale 
to  the  highest  bidder,  and  this  scene  of  barter  and 
sale  is  an  all-unconscious  revelation  of  the  low  stand- 
ard of  sex  ethics  which  obtained  at  the  time.  The 
suggestion  by  Sidney  Lanier  that  the  sub-title  should 
be :  "  or  Vice  Rewarded,"  "  since  the  rascal  Mr.  B. 
it  is  who  gets  the  prize  rather  than  Pamela,"  has 
its  pertinency  from  our  later  and  more  enlightened 
view.  But  such  was  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
exposure  of  an  earlier  time  is  one  of  the  benefits  of 
literature,  always  a  sort  of  ethical  barometer  of 
an  age — all  the  more  trustworthy  in  reporting  spir- 
itual ideals  because  it  has  no  intention  of  doina;  so. 
That  Richardson  succeeds  in  making  Mr.  B.  tol- 
erable, not  to  say  likable,  is  a  proof  of  his  power; 
that  the  reader  really  grows  fond  of  his  heroine — 
especially  perhaps  in  her  daughterly  devotion  to  her 
humble  family — speaks  volumes  for  his  grasp  of  hu- 
man nature  and  helps  us  to  understand  the  effect 
of  the  story  upon  contemporaneous  readers.  That 
effect  was  indeed  remarkable.  Lady  Mary,  to  quote 
her  again,  testifies  that  the  book  "  met  with  very 
extraordinary  (and  I  think  undeserved)  success.  It 
has  been  translated  into  Frejich  and  Italian ;  it  was 


30      MASTERS  OK  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

all  the  fiisliioii  ut  I'nris  jiiul  \'cTsjiilks  uiul  is  still 
the  joy  of  the  cluiinbormaitls  of  all  nations."  Again 
she  writes,  "  it  has  been  translated  into  more  lan- 
guages than  any  modern  performances  I  ever  heard 
of."  A  French  dramatic  version  of  it  under  the 
same  title  appeared  three  years  after^thc  publica- 
tion of  the  novel  and  a  little  later  Voltaire  in  his 
"  Nanine "  used  the  same  motif.  Lady  Mary's  ref- 
erence to  chambermaids  is  significant ;  it  points  to 
the  new  sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  novelist  and 
the  consequent  new  audience  which  the  modern  Novel 
was  to  command ;  literally,  all  classes  and  conditions 
of  mankind  were  to  become  its  patrons ;  and  as  one 
result,  the  author,  gaining  his  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  readers,  was  to  free  himself  forever  of 
the  aristocratic  Patron,  at  whose  door  once  on  a 
time,  he  very  humbly  and  hungrily  knelt  for  favor. 
To-day,  the  Patron  is  hydra-headed;  demos  rules  in 
literature  as  in  life. 

The  sentimentality  of  this  pioneer  novel  which 
now  seems  old-fashioned  and  even  absurd,  expressed 
Queen  Anne's  day.  "  Sensibility,"  as  it  was  called, 
was  a  favorite  idea  in  letters,  much  affected,  and 
later  a  kind  of  cult.  A  generation  after  Pamela, 
in  Mackenzie's  "  Man  of  Feeling,"  weeping  is  un- 
restrained in  English  fiction ;  the  hero  of  that  lach- 
rymose tale  incurred  all  the  dangers  of  influenza 
because  of  his  inveterate  tendency  toward  damp  emo- 
tional   effects;    he    was    perpetually    dissolving    in 


RICHARDSON  31 

"  showers  of  tears,"  In  fact,  our  novelists  down 
to  the  memory  of  living  man  gave  way  to  their 
feelings  with  far  more  abandon  than  is  true  of 
the  present  repressive  period.  One  who  reads  Dick- 
ens' "  Nicholas  Nickleby "  with  this  in  mind,  will 
perhaps  be  surprised  to  find  how  often  the  hero 
frankly  indulges  his  grief;  he  cries  with  a  freedom 
that  suggests  a  trait  inherited  from  his  mother  of 
moist  memory.  No  doubt,  there  was  abuse  of  this 
"  sensibility  "  in  earlier  fiction :  but  Richardson  was 
comparatively  innocuous  in  his  practice,  and  Cole- 
ridge, having  the  whole  sentimental  tendency  in  view, 
seems  rather  too  severe  when  he  declared  that  "  all 
the  evil  achieved  by  Hobbes  and  the  whole  school 
of  materialists  will  appear  inconsiderable  if  it  be  com- 
pared with  the  mischief  effected  and  occasioned  by 
the  sentimental  philosophy  of  Sterne  and  his  numer- 
ous imitators."  The  same  tendency  had  its  vogue 
on  both  the  English  and  French  stage — the  Comcdie 
larmoyante  of  the  latter  being  vastly  affected  in  Lon- 
don and  receiving  in  the  next  generation  the  good- 
natured  satiric  shafts  of  Goldsmith.  It  may  be  pos- 
sible that  at  the  present  time,  when  the  stoicism  of 
the  Red  Indian  in  inhibiting  expression  seems  to  be 
an  Anglo-Saxon  ideal,  we  have  reacted  too  far  from 
the  gush  and  the  fervor  of  our  forefathers.  In 
any  case,  to  Richardson  belongs  whatever  of  merit 
there  may  be  In  first  sounding  the  new  sentimental 
note. 


32       MASTERS  OF  TIIK   KXGLTSII   NOVEL 

Pojio  (Ifclarod  tluit  "  I'aiiu'la,''  was  as  good  as 
twenty  sermons — an  innocently  malignant  remark, 
to  be  sure,  whicli  cuts  both  ways !  And  plump, 
placid  Mr.  Richardson  established  warm  epistolary 
relations  with  many  excellent  if  too  emotional  ladies, 
who  opened  a  correspondence  with  him  concerning 
the  conductment  of  this  and  tlic  following  novels 
and  strove  to  deflect  the  course  thereof  to  soothe  their 
lacerated  feelings.  What  novelist  to-day  would  not 
appreciate  an  audience  that  would  take  him  an  grand 
serieux  in  this  fashion !  What  higher  compliment 
than  for  your  correspondent — and  a  lady  at  that — 
to  state  that  in  the  way  of  ministering  to  her  per- 
sonal comfort,  Pamela  must  marry  and  Clarissa  must 
not  die !  Richardson  carried  on  a  voluminous  letter- 
writing  in  life  even  as  in  literature,  and  the  curled 
darlings  of  latter-day  letters  may  well  look  to  their 
laurels  in  recalling  him.  A  certain  Mme.  Belfair, 
for  example,  desires  to  look  upon  the  author  of  those 
wonderful  tales,  yet  modestly  shrinks  from  being  seen 
herself.  She  therefore  implores  that  he  will  walk 
at  an  hour  named  in  St.  James  Park — and  this  is 
the  novelist's  reply: 

"  I  go  through  the  Park  once  or  twice  a  week  to 
my  little  retirement ;  but  I  will  for  a  week  together 
be  in  it,  every  day  three  or  four  hours,  till  you  tell 
me  you  have  seen  a  person  who  answers  to  this 
description,  namely,  short — rather  plump — fair  wig, 
lightish  cloth  coat,  all  black  besides ;  one  hand  gen- 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    33 

erally  in  his  bosom,  the  other  a  cane  in  it,  which 
he  leans  upon  under  the  skirts  of  his  coat ;  .  .  . 
looking  directly  fore-right  as  passers-by  would  im- 
agine, but  observing  all  that  stirs  on  either  hand 
of  him;  hardly  ever  turning  back;  of  a  light  brown 
complexion,  smoothish  faced  and  ruddy  cheeked,  look- 
ing about  sixty-five ;  a  regular,  even  pace,  a  gray 
eye,  sometimes  lively — very  lively  if  he  have  hope 
of  seeing  a  lady  whom  he  loves  and  honors !  " 

Such  innocent  philandering  is  delicious ;  there  is 
a  flavor  to  it  that  presages  the  "  Personals  "  in 
a  New  York  newspaper.  "  Was  ever  lady  in  such 
humor  wooed?"  or  shall  we  say  it  is  the  novelist, 
not  the  lady,  who  is  besieged ! 

"  Pamela  "  ran  through  five  editions  within  a  year 
of  its  appearance,  which  was  a  conspicuous  success 
in  the  days  of  an  audience  so  limited  when  compared 
with  the  vast  reading  public  of  later  times.  The 
smug  little  bookseller  must  have  been  greatly  pleased 
by  the  good  fortune  attending  his  first  venture  into 
a  new  field,  especially  since  he  essayed  it  so  late  in 
life  and  almost  by  accident.  His  motive  had  been  in 
a  sense  practical ;  for  his  publishers  had  requested 
him  to  write  a  book  "  on  the  useful  concerns  of 
life " — and  that  he  had  done  so,  he  might  have 
learned  any  Sunday  in  church,  for  divines  did  not 
hesitate  to  say  a  kind  word  from  the  pulpit  about 
so  unexceptionable  a  work. 

One  of  the  things   Richardson   had   triumphantly 


34      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

tlcnionstratod  by  liis  first  story  was  tliat  a  very 
slight  texture  of  i)l()t  can  sutticc  for  a  long,  not 
to  say  too  long,  piece  of  fiction,  if  only  a  free  hand 
be  given  the  story-teller  in  the  way  of  depicting  the 
intuitions  and  emotions  of  human  beings;  dealing 
with  their  mind  states  rather  than,  or  quite  as  much 
as,  their  actions.  This  was  the  modern  note,  and 
very  speedily  was  the  lesson  learned ;  the  time  was 
apt  for  it.  From  17-12,  the  date  of  "Pamela,"  to 
/ 1765  is  but  a  quarter  century ;  yet  within  those 
narrow  time-limits  the  English  Novel,  through  the 
labors  of  Richardson  and  Fielding,  Smollett,  Sterne 
and  Goldsmith,  can  be  said  to  have  had  its  birth 
and  growth  to  a  lusty  manhood  and  to  have  defined 
once  and  for  all  the  mold  of  this  new  and  potent 
form  of  prose  art.  By  1773  a  critic  speaks  of  the 
"  novel-writing  age  " ;  and  a  dozen  years  later,  in 
1785,  novels  are  so  common  that  we  hear  of  the 
press  "  groaning  beneath  their  weight," — which 
sounds  like  the  twentieth  century.  And  it  was  all 
started  by  the  little  printer;  to  him  the  praise. 
He  received  it  in  full  measure;  here  and  there,  of 
course,  a  dissident  voice  was  heard,  one,  that  of 
Fielding,  to  be  very  vocal  later;  but  mostly  they 
were  drowned  in  the  chorus  of  adulation.  Richard- 
son had  done  a  new  thing  and  reaped  an  immediate 
reward ;  and — as  seldom  happens,  with  quick  recogni- 
tion— it  was  to  be  a  permanent  reward  as  well,  for 
he  changed  the  history  of  English  literature. 


RICHARDSON  35 

One  would  have  expected  him  to  produce  another 
novel  post-haste,  following  up  his  maiden  victory 
before  it  could  be  forgotten,  after  the  modern  man- 
ner. But  those  were  leisured  days  and  it  was  half 
a  dozen  years  before  "  Clarissa  Harlowe "  was 
given  to  the  public.  Richardson  had  begun  by  tak- 
ing a  heroine  out  of  low  life;  he  now  drew  one  from 
genteel  middle  class  life ;  as  he  was  in  "  Sir  Charles 
Grandison,"  the  third  and  last  of  liis  fictions,  to 
depict  a  hero  in  the  upper  class  life  of  England. 
In  Clarissa  again,  plot  was  secondary,  analysis,  sen- 
timent, the  exhibition  of  the  female  heart  under 
stress  of  sorrow,  this  Avas  everything.  Clarissa's 
hand  is  sought  by  an  unattractive  suitor ;  she  rebels — 
a  social  crime  in  the  eighteenth  century ;  whereat,  her 
whole  family  turn  against  her — father,  mother,  sister, 
brothers,  uncles  and  aunts — and,  wooed  by  Lovelace, 
a  dashing  rake  who  is  in  love  with  her  according  to 
his  lights,  but  by  no  means  intends  honorable  matri- 
mony, she  flies  with  him  in  a  chariot  and  four,  to  find 
herself  in  a  most  anomalous  position,  and  so  dies 
broken-hearted;  to  be  followed  in  her  fate  by  Love- 
lace, who  is  represented  as  a  man  whose  loose  prin- 
ciples are  in  conflict  with  a  nature  which  is  far  from 
being  utterly  bad.  The  narrative  is  mainly  devel- 
oped through  letters  exchanged  between  Clarissa  and 
her  friend.  Miss  Howe.  There  can  hardly  be  a  more 
striking  testimony  to  the  leisure  enjoyed  by  the 
eighteenth  century  than  that  society  was  not  bored 


36       MAS'l'KnS  OV  TIW.  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

by  H  .^tory  tlic  length  of  wliic-h  scorns  almost  in- 
tcniiinahk'  to  tho  reader  to-day.  The  slow  niovc- 
mciit  is  sufficient  to  preclude  its  present  prosperity. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  Richardson  is  but  little  read 
now ;  read  much  less  than  his  great  contemporary, 
Fielding.  And  apparently  it  is  his  bulk  rather  than 
his  want  of  human  interest  or  his  antiquated  manner 
that  explains  the  fact.  The  instinct  to-day  is 
against  fiction  that  is  slow  and  tortuous  in  its  on- 
ward course ;  at  least  so  it  seemed  until  j\Ir.  De 
Morgan  returned  in  his  delightful  volumes  to  the 
method  of  the  past.  Those  are  pertinent  words 
of  the  distinguished  Spanish  novelist,  Valdes:  "An 
author  who  wishes  to  be  read  not  only  in  his  life, 
but  after  his  death  (and  the  author  who  does  not 
wish  this  should  lay  aside  his  pen),  cannot  shut 
his  e3'es,  when  unblinded  by  vanity,  to  the  fact  that 
not  only  is  it  necessary  to  be  interesting  to  save 
himself  from  oblivion,  but  the  story  must  not  be  a 
very  long  one.  The  world  contains  so  many  great  and 
beautiful  works  that  it  requires  a  long  life  to  read 
them  all.  To  ask  the  public,  always  anxious  for 
novelty,  to  read  a  production  of  inordinate  length, 
when  so  many  others  arc  demanding  attention,  seems 
to  me  useless  and  ridiculous.  .  .  .  The  most  note- 
worthy instance  of  what  I  say  is  seen  in  the  cele- 
brated English  novelist,  Richardson,  who,  in  spite 
of  his  admirable  genius  and  exquisite  sensibility  and 
perspicuity,  added  to  the  fact  of  his  being  the  father 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    37 

of  the  modern  Novel,  is  scarcely  read  nowadays,  at 
least  in  Latin  countries.  Given  the  indisputable 
beauties  of  his  works,  this  can  only  be  due  to  their 
extreme  length.  And  the  proof  of  this,  that  in 
France  and  Spain,  to  encourage  the  taste  for  them, 
the  most  interesting  parts  have  been  extracted  and 
published  in  editions  and  compendiums." 

This  is  suggestive,  coming  from  one  who  speaks 
by  the  book.  Who,  in  truth,  reads  epics  now — 
save  in  the  enforced  study  of  school  and  college.'' 
Will  not  Browning's  larger  works — like  "  The  Ring 
and  the  Book  " — suffer  disastrously  with  the  passing 
of  time  because  of  a  lack  of  continence,  of  a  failure 
to  realize  that  since  life  is  short,  art  should  not  be 
too  long?  It  may  be,  too,  that  Richardson,  newly 
handling  the  sentiment  which  during  the  following 
generation  was  to  become  such  a  marked  trait  of 
imaginative  letters,  revelled  in  it  to  an  extent  un- 
palatable to  our  taste ;  "  rubbing  our  noses,"  as 
Leslie  Stephen  puts  it,  "  in  all  her  (Clarissa's) 
agony," — the  tendency  to  overdo  a  new  thing,  not 
to  be  resisted  in  his  case.  But  with  all  concessions 
to  length  and  sentimentality,  criticism  from  that 
day  to  this  has  been  at  one  in  agreeing  that  here 
is  not  only  Richardson's  best  book  but  a  truly  great 
Novel.  Certainly  one  who  patiently  submits  to  a 
ruminant  reading  of  the  story,  will  find  that  when 
at  last  the  long-deferred  climax  is  reached  and  the 
awed  and  penitent  Lovelace  describes  the  death-bed 


.y 


38       MASTERS  OF  TIIK  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

moments  of  the  girl  lie  lias  ruined,  the  scone  has 
a  great  moving  power.  AUowing  for  differences  of 
taste  and  time,  the  vogue  of  the  Novel  in  Richard- 
son's day  can  easily  be  imderstood,  and  through  all 
the  stiffness,  the  stilted  effect  of  manner  and  speech, 
and  the  stifling  conventions  of  the  entourage,  a  sweet 
and  charming  young  woman  in  very  piteous  distress 
emerges  to  live  in  affectionate  memory.  After  all, 
no  poor  ideal  of  womanhood  is  pictured  in  Clarissa. 
She  is  one  of  the  heroines  who  are  unforgettable, 
dear.  Mr.  Howells,  with  his  stem  insistence  on  truth 
in  characterization,  declares  that  she  is  "  as  freshly 
modem  as  any  girl  of  yesterday  or  to-mon'ow. 
'  Clarissa  Harlowe,'  in  spite  of  her  eighteenth  cen- 
tury costume  and  keeping,  remains  a  masterpiece  in 
the  portraiture  of  that  ever-womanl}'  which  is  of  all 
times  and  places." 

Lovelace,  too,  whose  name  has  become  a  synonym 
for  the  fine  gentleman  betrayer,  is  dra\^Ti  in  a  way 
to  make  him  sympathetic  and  creditable;  he  is  far 
from  being  a  stock  figure  of  villainy.  And  the 
minor  figures  are  often  enjoyable;  the  friendship 
of  Clarissa  with  Miss  Howe,  a  young  woman  of 
excellent  good  sense  and  seemingly  quite  devoid  of 
the  ultra-sentiment  of  her  time,  preludes  that  be- 
tween Diana  and  her  "  Tony  "  in  Meredith's  great 
novel.  As  a  general  picture  of  the  society  of  the 
period,  the  book  is  full  of  illuminations  and  side- 
lights ;  of  course,  the  whole  action  is  set  on  a  stage 


RICHARDSON  39 

that    bespeaks    Richardson's    narrow,    middle    class        -y 
morality,  his  worship  of  rank,  his  belief  that  worldly 
goods  are  the  reward  of  well-doing. 

As  for  the  contemporaneous  public,  it  wept  and 
praised  and  went  with  fevered  blood  because  of  this 
fiction.  We  have  heard  how  women  of  sentiment 
in  London  town  welcomed  the  book  and  the  oppor- 
tunity it  offered  for  unrestrained  tears.  But  it 
was  the  same  abroad;  as  Ik  Marvel  has  it,  Rousseau 
and  Diderot  over  in  France,  philosophers  as  they 
professed  to  be,  "  blubbered  their  admiring  thanks 
for  '  Clarissa  Harlowe.'  "  Similarly,  at  a  later  day 
we  find  caustic  critics  like  Jeffrey  and  Macaulay 
writing  to  Dickens  to  tell  how  they  had  cried  over 
the  death  of  Little  Nell — a  scene  the  critical  to-day 
are  likely  to  stigmatize  as  one  of  the  few  examples 
of  pathos  overdone  to  be  found  in  the  works  of 
that  master.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that 
the  outcome  of  no  novel  in  the  English  tongue  was 
watched  with  such  bated  breath  as  was  that  of 
"  Clarissa  Harlowe  "  while  the  eight  successive  books 
were  being  issued. 

Richardson  chose  to  bask  for  another  half  dozen 
years  in  the  fame  of  liis  second  novel,  before  turning 
in  1754  to  his  final  attempt,  "  Sir  Charles  Grandi- 
son,"  wherein  it  was  his  pui'pose  to  depict  the  per- 
fect pattern  of  a  gentleman,  "  armed  at  all  points  " 
of  social  and  moral  behavior.  We  must  bear  in 
mind  that  when  "  Clarissa "  was  published  he  was 


10     MAsi'i,i{S  oi'  rm:  knglisii  novel 

sixt^'  3'curs  of  a^'i-  aiul  to  hi'  panlonrd  it"  ho  did 
not  emulate  so  maiiv  iiovtl-makirs  of  these  brisker 
mercantile  times  anil  turn  off  a  story  or  so  a  year. 
By  connnon  confession,  this  is  the  poorest  of 
his  three  fictions.  In  the  first  place,  we  are  asked 
to  move  more  sti-adily  in  the  aristocratic  atmosphere 
where  the  novi'list  did  not  breathe  to  best  advantage. 
Again,  Richardson  was  an  adept  in  drawing  women 
rather  than  men  and  hence  was  self-doomed  in  elect- 
ing a  masculine  protagonist.  He  is  also  off  his 
proper  ground  in  la^'ing  part  of  the  action  in  Italy. 
His  beau  ideal,  Grandison,  turns  out  the  most  im- 
possible prig  in  English  literature.  He  is  as  in- 
sufferable as  that  later  prig,  ^Meredith's  Sir  Wil- 
loughby  in  "The  Egotist,"  with  the  difference  that 
the  author  does  not  know  it,  and  that  you  do  not  be- 
lieve in  him  for  a  moment ;  whereas  Meredith's  crea- 
tion is  appallingly  true,  a  sort  of  simulacrum  of  us 
all.  The  best  of  the  story  is  in  its  portrayal  of  wom- 
ankind ;  in  particular,  Sir  Charles'  two  loves,  the  Eng- 
lish Harriet  Byron  and  the  Italian  Clementina,  the 
last  of  whom  is  enamored  of  him,  but  separated  by 
religious  differences.  Both  are  alive  and  though 
suffering  in  the  reader's  estimation  because  of  their 
devotion  to  such  a  stick  as  Grandison,  nevertheless 
touch  our  interest  to  the  quick.  The  scene  in  which 
Grandison  returns  to  Italy  to  see  Clementina,  whose 
reason,  it  is  feared,  is  threatened  because  of  her 
grief  over  his  loss,  is  genuinely  effective  and  affecting. 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    41 

The  mellifluous  sentimentality,  too,  of  the  novelist 
seems  to  come  to  a  climax  in  this  book;  justifying 
Taine's  satiric  remark  that  "  these  phrases  should  be 
accompanied  by  a  mandolin."  The  moral  tag  is 
infallibly  supplied,  as  in  all  Richardson's  tales — 
though  perhaps  here  with  an  effect  of  crescendo. 
We  are  still  long  years  from  that  conception  of  art 
which  holds  that  a  beautiful  thing  may  be  allowed 
to  speak  for  itself  and  need  not  be  moraled  down 
our  throats  like  a  physician's  prescription.  Yet 
Fielding  had  already,  as  we  shall  see,  struck  a  whole- 
some note  of  satiric  fun.  The  plot  is  slight  and 
centers  in  an  abduction  which,  by  the  time  it  is 
used  in  the  third  novel,  begins  to  pall  as  a  device 
and  to  suggest  paucity  of  invention.  The  novel 
has  the  prime  merit  of  brevity;  it  is  much  shorter 
than  "  Clarissa  Harlowe,"  but  long  enough,  in  all 
conscience,  Harriet  being  blessed  with  the  gift  of 
gab,  like  all  Richardson's  heroines.  "  She  follows 
the  maxim  of  Clarissa,"  says  Lady  Mary  with  telling 
humor,  "  of  declaring  all  she  thinks  to  all  the  people 
she  sees  without  reflecting  that  in  this  mortal  state 
of  imperfection,  fig-leaves  are  as  necessary  for  our 
minds  as  our  bodies."  It  is  significant  that  this 
brilliant  contemporary  is  very  hard  on  Richardson's 
characterization  of  women  in  this  volume  (which  she 
says  "sinks  horribly"),  whereas  never  a  word  has 
she  to  say  in  condemnation  of  the  hero,  who  to  the 
present  critical  eye  seems   the  biggest  blot  on  the 


Vi       MASTKKS  Ol'    Till:   FAH'.I.ISII    NOVKL 

pi-rfonimiirc.  How  can  we  join  llic  chorus  of  praise 
led  by  Harriet,  now  her  hulyship  and  his  loving 
spouse,  wlien  it  chants:  "  IJul  could  he  l)e  otherwise 
than  the  best  of  husbands  who  was  the  most  dutiful 
of  sons,  who  is  the  most  aflfectionate  of  brothers, 
the  most  faithful  of  friends,  who  is  good  upon  prin- 
ciple in  every  relation  in  life?"  Lady  Mary  is 
also  extremely  severe  on  the  novelist's  attempt  to 
paint  Italy ;  when  he  talks  of  it,  says  she,  "  it  is 
plain  he  is  no  better  acquainted  with  it  than  he  is 
with  the  Kingdom  of  Mancomingo."  It  is  probable 
that  Richardson  could  not  say  more  for  his  Italian 
knowledge  than  did  old  Roger  Ascham  of  Archery 
fame,  when  he  declared:  "I  was  once  in  Italy,  but 
I  thank  God  my  stay  there  was  only  nine  days." 
"  Sir  Charles  Grandison  "  has  also  the  substantial 
advantage  of  ending  well:  that  is,  if  to  marry  Sir 
Charles  can  be  so  regarded,  and  certainly  Harriet 
deemed  it  desirable. 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  Richardson,  now  well 
into  the  sixties,  amiable,  plump  and  prosperous,  sur- 
rounded for  the  remainder  of  his  days — ^he  was  to 
die  seven  years  later  at  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-five — 
by  a  bevy  of  admiring  women,  who,  whether  literary 
or  merely  human,  gave  this  particular  author  that 
warm  and  convincing  proof  of  popularity  which, 
to  most,  is  worth  a  good  deal  of  chilly  posthumous 
fame  which  a  man  is  not  there  to  enjoy.  Looking 
at  his  work  retrospectively,  one  sees  that  it  must 


RICHARDSON  43 

always  have  authority,  even  if  it  fall  deadly  dull 
upon  our  ears  to-day;  for  nothing  can  take  away 
from  him  the  distinction  of  originating  that  kind 
of  fiction  which,  now  well  along  towards  its  second 
century  of  existence,  is  still  popular  and  powerful. 
Richardson  had  no  model;  he  shaped  a  form  for  ^ 
himself.  Fielding,  a  greater  genius,  threw  his  fiction 
into  a  mold  cast  by  earlier  writers;  moreover,  he 
received  his  direct  impulse  away  from  the  drama 
and  towards  the  novel  from  Richardson  himself. 

The  author  of  "  Pamela  "  demonstrated  once  and 
for  all  the  interest  that  lies  in  a  sympathetic  and 
truthful  representation  of  character  in  contrast  with 
that  interest  in  incident  for  its  own  sake  which  means 
the  subordination  of  character,  so  that  the  persons 
become  mere  subsidiary  counters  in  the  game.  And 
he  exhibited  such  a  knowledge  of  the  subtler  phases  *^ 
of  the  nooks  and  crannies  of  woman's  heart,  as  to  be 
hailed  as  past-master  down  to  the  present  day  by 
a  whole  school  of  analysts  and  psychologues ;  for 
may  it  not  be  said  that  it  is  the  popular  distinction 
of  the  nineteenth  century  fiction  to  place  woman  in 
the  pivotal  position  in  that  social  complex  which 
it  is  the  business  of  the  Novel  to  represent.?  Do 
not  our  fiction  and  drama  to-day — the  drama  a 
belated  ally  of  the  Novel  in  this  and  other  regards — 
find  in  the  delineation  of  the  eternal  feminine  under 
new  conditions  of  our  time,  its  chief,  its  most  sig- 
nificant motif .f*      If  so,   a   special  gratitude   is   due 


•ti       MASTERS  OV  TIIK   ENGLISH  NOVEL 

the  placid  littk-  Mr.  Iliclinrdson  with  his  Pamelas, 
Clarissas  and  Harriets.  He  fouivd  fiction  unwritten 
so  far  as  the  chronicles  of  contemporary  society  were 
concerned,  and  left  it  in  such  shape  that  it  was 
recognized  as  the  natural  quarry  of  all  who  would 
paint  manners ;  a  field  to  be  worked  by  Jane  Austen, 
Dickens  and  Tliackeray,  Trollope  and  George  Eliot, 
and  a  modern  army  of  latter  and  lesser  students  of 
life.  His  faults  were  in  part  merely  a  reflection  of 
his  time;  its  low-pitched  morality,  its  etiquette  which 
often  seems  so  absurd.  Partly  it  was  his  own,  too ; 
for  he  utterly  lacked  humor  (save  where  uncon- 
scious) and  never  grasped  the  great  truth  that  in 
literary  art  the  half  is  often  more  than  the  whole; 
The  Terentian  ne  quid  nimis  had  evidently  not  been 
taken  to  heart  by  Samuel  Richardson,  Esquire,  of 
Hammersmith,  author  of  "  Clarissa  Harlowe "  in 
eight  volumes,  and  Printer  to  the  Queen.  Again  and 
again  one  of  Clarissa's  bursts  of  emotion  under  the 
tantalizing  treatment  of  her  seducer  loses  its  effect 
because  another  burst  succeeds  before  we  (and  she) 
have  recovered  from  the  first  one.  He  strives  to 
give  us  the  broken  rhythm  of  life  (therein  showing 
his  affinity  with  the  latter  day  realists)  instead  of 
that  higher  and  harder  thing — the  more  perfect 
rhythm  of  art;  not  so  much  tlie  truth  (which  can- 
not be  literally  given)  as  that  seeming-true  which 
is  the  aim  and  object  of  the  artistic  representation. 
Hence  the  necessity  of  what  Brunetiere  calls  in  an 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    45 

admirable  phrase,  the  true  function  of  the  novel — 
"  to  be  an  abridged  representation  of  life."  Con-  "^ 
struction  in  the  modern  sense  Richardson  had  not 
studied,  naturally  enough,  and  was  innocent  of  the 
fineness  of  method  and  the  sure-handed  touches  of 
later  technique.  And  there  is  a  kind  of  drawing- 
room  atmosphere  in  his  books,  a  lack  of  ozone  which 
makes  Fielding  with  all  his  open-air  coarseness  a 
relief.  But  judged  in  the  setting  of  his  time,  this 
writer  did  a  wonderful  thing  not  only  as  the  Father 
of  the  Modem  Novel  but  one  of  the  few  authors 
in  the  whole  range  of  fiction  who  holds  his  con- 
spicuous place  amid  shifting  literary  modes  and 
fashions,  because  he  built  upon  the  surest  of  all 
foundations — the  social  instinct,  and  the  human  - 
heart. 

If  the  use  of  the  realistic  method  alone  denoted 
the  Novel,  Defoe,  not  Richardson,  might  be  called  its 
begetter.  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  more  than  twenty 
years  before  "  Pamela,"  would  occupy  the  primate 
position,  to  say  nothing  of  Swift's  "  Gulliver's  Trav- 
els," antedating  Richardson's  first  story  by  some 
fifteen  years.  Certainly  the  observational  method, 
the  love  of  detail,  the  grave  narrative  of  imagined 
fact  (if  the  bull  be  permitted)  are  in  this  earlier 
book  in  full  force.  But  "  Robinson  Crusoe  "  is  not 
a  rival  because  it  does  not  study  man-in-society ;  ■ 
never  was  a  story  that  depended  less  upon  this  kind 
of  interest.     The  position  of  Crusoe  on  his  desert 


4(i       iMASTKUS  OF  Tin:    I'AOMSII    NON'KI. 

isle  is  so  eminently  un.st)c-inl  that  lie  weleonics  the 
black  ninn  Friday  and  (juivers  at  the  human  quality 
in  tile  famed  footprints  in  the  sand.  As  for  Swift's 
ch^f  d'auvri',  it  is  ji  fairy-tale  with  a  •rrinily  real- 
istic manner  and  a  savage  satiric  intention.  To 
speak  of  cither  of  these  fictions  as  novels  is  an 
example  of  the  prevalent  careless  nomenclature.  Be- 
tween them  and  "  Pamela "  there  yawns  a  chasm. 
Moreover,  "  Crusoe  "  is  a  frankly  picaresque  tale  be- 
longing to  the  elder  line  of  romantic  fiction,  where 
incident  and  action  and  all  the  thrilling  haps  of  Ad- 
venture-land furnish  the  basis  of  appeal  rather  than 
character  analysis  or  a  study  of  social  relations. 
The  personality  of  Crusoe  is  not  advanced  a  whit  by 
his  wonderful  experiences;  he  is  done  entirely  from 
the  outside. 

Richardson,  therefore,  marks  the  beginning  of  the 
modem  form.  But  that  the  objection  to  Defoe  as 
the  true  and  oidy  begetter  of  the  Novel  lies  in  his 
failure,  in  his  greatest  story,  to  center  the  interest 
in  man  as  part  of  the  social  order  and  as  human 
soul,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  his  less  known,  but 
remarkable,  story  "  Moll  Flanders,"  picaresque  as  it 
is  and  depicting  the  life  of  a  female  criminal,  has 
yet  considerable  character  study  and  gets  no  small 
part  of  its  appeal  for  a  present-day  reader  from  the 
minute  description  of  the  fall  and  final  reform  of  the 
degenerate  woman.  It  is  comparatively  crude  in 
characterization,  but  psychological  value  is  not  en- 


RICHARDSON  47 

tirely  lacking.  However,  with  Richardson  it  is  al- 
most all.  It  was  of  the  nature  of  his  genius  to  make 
psychology  paramount:  just  there  is  found  his 
modernity.  Defoe  and  Swift  may  be  said  to  have 
added  some  slight  interest  in  analysis  pointing  to- 
wards the  psychologic  method,  which  was  to  find  full 
expression  in  Samuel  Richardson. 


CHAPTER  III 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS: 
EIELDING 

It  is  interesting  to  ask  if  Henry  Fielding,  barris- 
ter, journalist,  tinker  of  plays  and  man-about- 
town,  would  ever  have  turned  novelist,  had  it  not 
been  for  Richardson,  his  predecessor.  So  slight,  so 
seemingly  accidental,  are  the  incidents  which  make  or 
mar  careers  and  change  the  course  of  literary  history. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  immediate  cause  of  Fielding's 
first  story  was  the  effect  upon  him  of  the  fortunes 
of  the  virtuous  Pamela.  A  satirist  and  humorist 
where  Richardson  was  a  somewhat  solemn  sentimental- 
ist. Fielding  was  quick  to  see  the  weakness,  and — 
more  important, — the  opportunity  for  caricature,  in 
such  a  tale,  whose  folk  harangued  about  morality 
and  whose  avowed  motive  was  a  kind  of  hard-sur- 
faced, carefully  calculated  honor,  for  sale  to  the 
highest  bidder.  It  was  easy  to  recognize  that 
Pamela  was  not  only  good  but  goody-goody.  So 
Fielding,  being  thirty-five  years  of  age  and  of  un- 
certain income — he  had  before  he  was  thirty  squan- 
dered his  mother's  estate, — turned  himself,  two  years 
after  "  Pamela  "  had  appeared,  to  a  new  field  and 

48 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    49 

concocted  the  story  known  to  the  world  of  letters  as : 
"  The  Adventures  of  Joseph  Andrews  and  His  Friend 
Abraham  Adams." 

This  Joseph  purports  to  be  the  brother  of  Pamela 
(though  the  denouement  reveals  him  as  more  gently 
born)  and  is  as  virtuous  in  his  character  of  serving- 
man  as  the  sister  herself;  indeed,  he  outvirtues  her. 
Fielding  waggishly  exhibits  him  in  the  full  exercise 
of  a  highly-starched  decorum  rebuffing  the  amatory 
attempts  of  sundry  ladies  whose  assault  upon  the 
citadel  of  his  honor  is  analogous  to  that  of  Mr.  B., — 
who  naturally  becomes  Squire  Booby  in  Fielding's 
hands — upon  the  long  suffering  Pamela.  Thus, 
Lady  Booby,  in  whose  employ  Joseph  is  footman, 
after  an  invitation  to  him  to  kiss  her  which  has  been 
gently  but  firmly  refused,  bursts  out  with :  "  Can  a 
boy,  a  stripling,  have  the  confidence  to  talk  of  his 
virtue?  " 

"  Madam,"  says  Joseph,  "  that  boy  is  the  brother 
of  Pamela  and  would  be  ashamed  that  the  chastity  of 
his  family,  which  is  preserved  in  her,  should  be  stained 
in  him." 

The  chance  for  fun  is  palpable  here.  But  some- 
thing unexpected  happened:  what  was  begun  as  bur- 
lesque, almost  horse-play,  began  to  pass  from  the 
key  of  shallow,  lively  satire,  broadening  and  deepen- 
ing into  a  finer  tone  of  truth.  In  a  few  chapters, 
by  the  time  the  writer  had  got  such  an  inimitable 
personage  as  Parson  Adams  before  the  reader,  it  was 


JO      MASTERS  OF  TIIK  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

scon  tlmt  the  book  wns  to  be  more  than  a  jcu  (Fcsprit: 
rather,  the  work  of  a  master  of  characterization. 
In  short,  Joseph  Andrews  started  out  ostensibly  to 
}K)ke  ^od-natured  ridicule  at  sentimental  iVIr. 
Richardson :  it  ended  bj  furnishing  contemporary 
London  and  all  subsequent  readers  with  a  notable 
example  of  the  novel  of  mingled  character  and  in- 
cident, entertaining  alike  for  its  lively  episodes  and 
its  broadly  genial  delineation  of  types  of  the  time. 
And  so  he  soon  had  the  town  laughing  with  him  at  his 
broad  comedy. 

In  every  respect  Fielding  made  a  sharp  contrast 
with  Richardson.  He  was  gentle-born,  distinguished 
and  fashionable  in  his  connections :  the  son  of  younger 
sons,  impecunious,  generous,  of  strong  often  unreg- 
ulated passions, — what  the  world  calls  a  good  fellow, 
a  man's  man — albeit  his  affairs  with  the  fair  sex 
were  numerous.  He  knew  high  society  when  he 
choose  to  depict  it:  his  education  compared  with 
Richardson's  was  liberal  and  he  based  his  style  of 
fiction  upon  models  which  the  past  supplied,  where- 
as Richardson  had  no  models,  blazed  his  own  trail. 
Fielding's  literary  ancestry  looks  back  to  "  Gil  Bias  " 
and  "  Don  Quixote,"  and  in  English  to  "  Robinson 
Crusoe."  In  other  words,  his  type,  however  much 
he  departs  from  it,  is  the  picturesque  story  of  adven- 
ture. He  announced,  in  fact,  on  his  title-page  that 
he  Wrote  "  in  imitation  of  the  manner  of  Cervantes." 

Again,  his  was  a  genius  for  comedy,  where  Rich- 


FIELDING  51 

ardson,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  psychologist.  The 
cleansing  eflPect  of  wholesome  laughter  and  an  outdoor 
gust  of  hale  west  wind  is  offered  by  him,  and  with  it 
go  the  rude,  coarse  things  to  be  found  in  Nature 
who  is  nevertheless  in  her  influence  so  salutary,  so 
necessary,  in  truth,  to  our  intellectual  and  moral 
health.  Here  then  was  a  sort  of  fiction  at  many  re- 
moves from  the  slow,  analytic  studies  of  Richardson : 
buoyant,  objective,  giving  far  more  play  to  action 
and  incident,  uniting  in  most  agreeable  proportions 
the  twin  interests  of  character  and  event.  The  very 
title  of  this  first  book  is  significant.  We  are  invited 
to  be  present  at  a  delineation  of  two  men, — but  these 
men  are  displayed  in  a  series  of  adventures.  Un- 
questionably, the  psychology  is  simpler,  cruder,  more 
elementary  than  that  of  Richardson.  Dr.  Johnson, 
who  much  preferred  the  author  of  "  Pamela  "  to  the 
author  of  "  Tom  Jones  "  and  said  so  in  the  hammer- 
and-tongs  style  for  which  he  is  famous,  declared  to 
Bozzy  that  "  there  is  all  the  diff^erence  in  the  world 
between  characters  of  nature  and  characters  of 
manners :  and  there  is  the  difference  between  the  char- 
acters of  Fielding  and  those  of  Richardson. 
Characters  of  manners  are  very  entertaining;  but 
they  are  to  be  understood  by  a  more  superficial 
observer  than  characters  of  nature,  where  a  man  must 
dive  into  the  recesses  of  the  human  heart." 

And  although  we  may  share  Boswell's  feeling  that 
Johnson   estimated   the   compositions   of   Richardson 


52       MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

too  liio'lilv  and  that  lie  had  an  unreasonable  prejudice 
against  Fielding — since  ho  was  a  man  of  magnifi- 
cent biases — yet  wc  may  grant  that  the  critic-god 
made  a  sound  distinction  here,  that  Fielding's 
method  is  inevitably  more  external  and  shallow  than 
tliat  of  all  analyst  proper  like  Richardson ;  no  doubt 
to  the  great  joy  of  many  weary  folk  who  go  to 
novels  for  the  rest  and  refreshment  they  give,  rather 
than  for  their  thought-evoking  value. 

The  contrast  between  these  novelists  is  maintained, 
too,  in  the  matter  of  style:  Fielding  walks  with  the 
easy  undress  of  a  gentleman :  Richardson  sits  some- 
what stiff  and  pragmatical,  carefully  arrayed  in  full- 
bottomed  wig,  and  knee  breeches,  delivering  a  lecture 
from  his  garden  chair.  Fielding  is  a  master  of 
that  colloquial  manner  afterwards  handled  with  such 
success  by  Thackeray :  a  manner  "  good  alike  for 
grave  or  gay,"  and  making  this  early  fiction-maker 
enjoyable.  Quite  apart  from  our  relish  of  his  vivid 
portraj-als  of  life,  w^e  like  his  wayside  chatting. 
For  another  difference:  there  is  no  moral  motto  or 
announcement :  the  lesson  takes  care  of  itself.  What 
unity  there  is  of  construction,  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  certain  characters,  more  or  less  related,  are 
seen  to  walk  centrally  through  the  narrative:  there 
is  little  or  no  plot  development  in  the  modern  sense 
and  the  method  (the  method  of  the  type)  is  frankly 
episodic. 

In  view  of  what  the  Novel  was  to  become  in  the 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    53 

nineteenth  century,  Richardson's  way  was  more  mod- 
ern, and  did  more  to  set  a  seal  upon  fiction  than 
Fielding's :  the  Novel  to-day  is  first  of  all  psychologic 
and  serious.  And  the  assertion  is  safe  that  all  the 
later  development  derives  from  these  two  kinds 
written  by  the  two  greatest  of  the  eighteenth  century 
pioneers,  Richardson  and  Fielding:  on  the  one  hand, 
character  study  as  a  motive,  on  the  other  the  por- 
trayal of  personality  surrounded  by  the  external 
factors  of  life.  The  wise  combination  of  the  two, 
gives  us  that  tangle  of  motive,  act  and  circumstance 
which  makes  up  human  existence. 

With  regard  to  the  morals  of  the  story,  a  word 
may  here  be  said,  having  all  Fielding's  fiction  in 
mind.  Of  the  suggestive  prurience  of  much  modern 
novelism,  whether  French  or  French-derived,  he, 
Fielding,  is  quite  free:  he  deals  with  the  sensual 
relations  with  a  frank  acknowledgment  of  their 
physical  basis.  The  truth  is,  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, whether  in  England  or  elsewhere,  was  on  a 
lower  plane  in  this  respect  than  our  own  time. 
Fielding,  therefore,  while  he  does  no  affront  to  essen- 
tial decency,  does  offend  our  taste,  our  refinement, 
in  dealing  with  this  aspect  of  life.  We  have  in  a 
true  sense  become  more  civilized  since  1750 :  the  ape 
and  tiger  of  Tennyson's  poem  have  receded  some- 
what in  human  nature  during  tlie  last  century  and 
a  half.  The  plea  that  since  Fielding  was  a  realist 
depicting  society  as  it  was  in  his  day,  his  license  is 


5i      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

IcgltiniJite,  whereas  Richardson  was  giving  a  sort 
of  sentimentalized  stained-glass  picture  of  it  not  as 
it  was  but,  in  his  opinion,  should  be, — is  a  specious 
one;  it  is  well  that  in  literature,  faithful  reflector 
of  the  ideals  of  the  race,  the  beast  should  be  allowed 
to  die  (as  Mr.  Howells,  himself  a  staunch  realist,  has 
said),  simply  because  it  is  slowly  dying  in  life  itself. 
Fielding's  novels  in  unexpurgated  form  are  not  for 
household  reading  to-day :  the  fact  may  not  be  a  re- 
flection upon  him,  but  it  is  surely  one  to  congratulate 
ourselves  upon,  since  it  testifies  to  social  evolution. 
However,  for  those  whose  experience  of  life  is  suffi- 
ciently broad  and  tolerant,  these  novels  hold  no  harm : 
there  is  a  tonic  quality  to  them. — Even  bowdlerization 
is  not  to  be  despised  with  such  an  author,  when  it 
makes  him  suitable  for  the  hands  of  those  who  other- 
wise might  receive  injury  from  the  contact.  The 
critic-sneer  at  such  an  idea  forgets  that  good  art 
comes  out  of  sound  morality  as  well  as  out  of  sound 
esthetics.  It  is  pleasant  to  hear  a  critic  of  such 
standing  as  Brunetiere  in  his  "  L'Art  et  Morale " 
speak  with  spiritual  clarity  upon  this  subject,  so 
often  turned  aside  with  the  shrug  of  impatient  scorn. 
The  episodic  character  of  the  story  was  to  be  the 
manner  of  Fielding  in  all  his  fiction.  There  are 
detached  bits  of  narrative,  stories  within  stories — 
witness  that  dealing  with  the  high  comedy  figures  of 
Leonora  and  Bellamine — and  the  novelist  does  not 
bother  his  head  if  only  he  can  get  his  main  characters 


FIELDING  55 

in  motion, — on  the  road,  in  a  tavern  or  kitchen 
brawl,  astride  a  horse  for  a  cross-country  dash  after 
the  hounds.  Charles  Dickens,  whose  models  were  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  made  similar  use  of  the  epi- 
sode in  his  early  work,  as  readers  of  "  Pickwick " 
may  see  for  themselves. 

The  first  novel  was  received  with  acclaim  and 
stirred  up  a  pretty  literary  quarrel,  for  Richardson 
and  his  admiring  clique  would  have  been  more  than 
human  had  they  not  taken  umbrage  at  so  obvious  a 
satire.     Recriminations  were  hot  and  many. 

Mr.  Andrew  Lang  should  give  us  in  a  dialogue  be- 
tween dead  authors,  a  meeting  in  Hades  between  the 
two :  it  would  be  worth  any  climatic  risk  to  be  present 
and  hear  what  was  said;  Lady  Mary,  who  may  once 
more  be  put  on  the  witness-stand,  tells  how,  being 
in  residence  in  Italy,  and  a  box  of  light  literature 
from  England  having  arrived  at  ten  o'clock  of  the 
night,  she  could  not  but  open  it  and  "  falling  upon 
Fielding's  works,  was  fool  enough  to  sit  up  all  night 
reading.  I  think  'Joseph  Andrews'  better  than  his 
Foundling " — the  reference  being,  of  course,  to 
"Tom  Jones";  a  judgment  not  jumping  with  that 
of  posterity,  which  has  declared  the  other  to  be  his 
masterpiece ;  yet  not  an  opinion  to  be  despised,  com- 
ing from  one  of  the  keenest  intellects  of  the  time. 
Lady  Mary,  whose  cousin  Fielding  was,  had  a  clear 
eye  alike  for  his  literary  merits  and  personal  foibles 
and  faults,  but  heartily  liked  him  and  acted  as  his 


50      MASTK US  OF  'rilE   ENGLISH  NOVEL 

literary  iiu'iitor  in  his  earlier  (la3'.s  ;  his  luaidcn  play 
was  dedicated  to  her  and  her  interest  in  him  was  more 
tlinn  passing. 

The  Bohemian  barrister  and  literary  haclc  who 
had  made  a  love-match  half  a  dozen  years  before  and 
now  had  a  wife  and  several  children  to  care  for,  must 
have  been  vastly  encouraged  by  the  favorable  recep- 
tion of  his  first  essay  into  fiction ;  at  last,  he  had 
found  the  kind  of  literature  congenial  to  his  talents 
and  likely  to  secure  suitable  renown :  his  metier  as  an 
artist  of  letters  was  discovered,  as  we  might  now 
choose  to  express  it ;  he  would  hardly  have  taken  him- 
self so  seriously.  It  was  natural  that  he  should  pub- 
lish the  next  year  a  three  volume  collection  of  his 
miscellany,  which  contained  his  second  novel,  "  ]\Ir. 
Jonathan  Wild  The  Great,"  distinctly  the  least  liked 
of  his  four  stories,  because  of  its  bitter  irony,  its 
almost  savage  tone,  the  gloom  which  surrounds  the 
theme,  a  powerful,  full-length  portrayal  of  a  famous 
thief-taker  of  the  period,  from  his  birth  to  his  bad 
end  on  a  Newgate  gallows.  Mr.  Wild  is  a  sort  of 
foreglimpse  of  the  Sherlock  Holmes-Raffles  of  our 
own  day. 

Fielding's  wife  died  this  year  and  it  may  be  that 
sorrow  for  her  fatal  illness  was  the  subjective  cause 
of  the  tone  of  this  gruesomely  attractive  piece  of 
fiction;  but  there  is  some  reason  for  believing  it  to 
be  an  earher  work  than  "  Joseph  Andrews  " ;  it  be- 
longs  to   a  more   primitive   type   of  story-making. 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    57 

because  of  its  sensational  features :  its  dependence  for 
interest  upon  the  seamy  side  of  aspects  of  life  ex- 
hibited hke  magic  lantern  slides  with  little  connection, 
but  spectacular  effects.  The  satire  of  the  book  is 
directed  at  that  immoral  confusion  between  greatness 
and  goodness,  the  rascally  Jonathan  being  pictured 
in  grave  mock-heroics  as  in  every  way  worthy — and 
the  sardonic  force  at  times  almost  suggests  the  pen 
of  Dean  Swift. 

But  such  work  was  but  a  prelude  to  what  was 
to  follow.  When  the  world  thinks  of  Henry  Field- 
ing it  thinks  of  "  Tom  Jones,"  it  is  almost  as  if  he 
had  written  naught  else.  "  The  History  of  Tom 
Jones,  A  Foundling "  appeared  six  years  after 
"  Jonathan  Wild,"  the  intermediate  time  (aside  from 
the  novel  itself)  being  consumed  in  editing  journals 
and  officiating  as  a  Justice  of  the  Peace:  the  last  a 
role  it  is  a  little  difficult,  in  the  theater  phrase,  to 
see  him  in.  He  was  two  and  forty  when  the  book 
was  published:  but  as  he  had  been  at  work  upon  it 
for  a  long  while  (he  speaks  of  the  thousands  of 
hours  he  had  been  toiling  over  it),  it  may  be  ascribed 
to  that  period  of  a  man's  growth  when  he  is  passing 
intellectually  from  youth  to  early  maturity ;  every- 
thing considered,  perhaps  the  best  productive  period. 
His  health  had  already  begun  to  break:  and  he  was 
by  no  means  free  of  the  harassments  of  debt.  Al- 
though successful  in  his  former  attempt  at  fiction, 
novel  writing  was  but  an  aside  with  him,  after  all; 


r^S      MASTF.RS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

lie  had  not  durin;^  the  ])i'ovioii.s  six  years  ^iven  rcf^u- 
lar  liiiK'  and  atteiilioii  to  litiTary  coiiiposilioii,  as  a 
modern  story-maker  would  have  done  under  the  stim- 
ulus of  like  encourap^crnent.  The  eighteenth  cen- 
tury audience,  it  must  he  borne  in  mind,  was  not 
large  cnougli  nor  sufficiently  eager  for  an  attractive 
new  form  of  literature,  to  justify  a  man  of  many 
trades  like  Fielding  in  devoting  his  days  steadily 
to  the  writing  of  fiction.  There  is  to  the  last  an 
effect  of  the  gifted  amateur  about  him ;  Taine  tells 
the  anecdote  of  his  refusal  to  trouble  himself  to 
change  a  scene  in  one  of  his  plays,  which  Garrick 
begged  him  to  do :  "  Let  them  find  it  out,"  he  said, 
referring  to  the  audience.  And  when  the  scene  was 
hissed,  he  said  to  the  disconsolate  player :  "  I  did  not 
give  them  credit  for  it :  they  have  found  it  out,  have 
they?  "  In  other  words,  he  was  knowing  to  his  own 
poor  art,  content  if  only  it  escaped  the  public  eye. 
This  is  some  removes  from  the  agonizing  over  a 
phrase  of  a  Flaubert. 

Like  the  preceding  story,  "  Tom  Jones  "  has  its 
center  of  plot  in  a  life  history  of  the  foundling  who 
grows  into  a  young  manhood  that  is  full  of  high 
spirits  and  escapades:  likable  always,  even  if,  judged 
by  the  straight-laced  standards  of  Richardson,  one 
may  not  approve.  Jones  loves  Sophia  Western, 
daughter  of  a  typical  three-bottle,  hunting  squire: 
of  course  he  prefers  the  little  cad  Blifil,  with  his 
money  and  position,  where  poor  Tom  has  neither; 


FIELDING  59 

equally  of  course  Sophia  (whom  the  reader  heartily 
likes,  in  spite  of  her  name)  prefers  the  handsome 
Jones  with  his  blooming  complexion  and  many  ama- 
tory adventures.  And,  since  we  are  in  the  simple- 
minded  days  of  fiction  when  it  was  the  business  of 
the  sensible  novelist  to  make  us  happy  at  the  close, 
the  low-boni  lover,  assisted  by  Squire  Allworthy,  who 
is  a  deus  ex  machina  a  trifle  too  good  for  human 
nature's  daily  food,  gets  his  girl  (in  imitation  of 
Joseph  Andrews)  and  is  shown  to  be  close  kin  to 
Allworthy — tra-la-la,  tra-la-lee,  it  is  all  charm- 
ingly simple  and  easy !  The  beginners  of  the  English 
novel  had  only  a  few  little  tricks  in  their  box  in  the 
way  of  incident  and  are  for  the  most  part  innocent 
of  plot  in  the  Wilkie  Collins  sense  of  the  word.  The 
opinion  of  Coleridge  that  the  "Oedipus  Tyrannus," 
"  The  Alchemist"  and  "  Tom  Jones  "  are  "  the  three 
most  perfect  plots  ever  planned  "  is  a  curious  com- 
ment upon  his  conception  of  fiction,  since  few  stories 
have  been  more  plotless  than  Fielding's  best  book. 
The  fact  is,  biographical  fiction  like  this  is  to  be 
judged  by  itself,  it  has  its  own  laws  of  technique. 

The  glory  of  "  Tom  Jones  "  is  in  its  episodes,  its 
crowded  canvas,  the  unfailing  verve  and  variety  of 
its  action :  in  the  fine  open-air  atmosphere  of  the 
scenes,  the  sense  of  the  stir  of  life  they  convey:  most 
of  all,  in  an  indescribable  manliness  or  humanness 
which  bespeaks  the  true  comic  force — something  of 
that  same  comic  view  that  one  detects  in  Shakspcre 


Go      MASTKUS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

;uul  Molioro  unci  Cervantes,  It  means  an  o])cn-eycd 
acceptance  of  life,  a  realization  of  its  seriousness  yet 
with  the  will  to  take  it  with  a  smile:  a  large  tolerancy 
which  forbids  the  view  conventional  or  parochial  or 
aristocratic — in  brief,  the  view  limited.  There  is 
this  in  the  book,  along  with  much  psychology  so 
supci-ficial  as  to  seem  childish,  and  nmch  interpreta- 
tion that  makes  us  feel  that  the  higher  possibilities 
of  men  and  women  are  not  as  yet  even  dreamed  of. 
In  this  novel,  Fielding  makes  fuller  use  than  he  had 
before  of  the  essay  link:  the  chapters  introductory 
to  the  successive  books, — and  in  them,  a  born  essay- 
ist, as  3'our  master  of  style  is  pretty  sure  to  be, 
he  discourses  in  the  wisest  and  wittiest  way  on  topics 
h'terar}',  philosophical  or  social,  having  naught  to 
do  with  the  story  in  hand,  it  may  be,  but  highly 
welcome  for  its  own  sake.  This  manner  of  pausing 
by  the  way  for  general  talk  about  the  world  in  terms 
of  ^le  has  been  used  since  by  Thackeray,  with  de- 
lightful results :  but  has  now  become  old-fashioned, 
because  we  conceive  it  to  be  the  novelist's  business  to 
stick  close  to  his  story  and  not  obtrude  his  person- 
ality at  all.  Thackeray  displeases  a  critic  like  Mr. 
James  by  his  postscript  harangues  about  himself  as 
Showman,  putting  his  puppets  into  the  box  and  shut- 
ting up  his  booth :  fiction  is  too  serious  a  matter  to 
be  treated  so  lightly  by  its  makers — to  say  nothing 
of  the  audience:  it  is  more,  much  more  than  mere 
foohng  and  show-business.     But  to  go  back  to  the 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    61 

eighteenth  century  is  to  realize  that  the  novel  is 
being  newly  shaped,  that  neither  novelist  nor  novel- 
reader  is  yet  awake  to  the  higher  conception  of  the 
genre.  So  we  wax  lenient  and  are  glad  enough  to 
get  these  resting-places  of  chat  and  charm  from 
Fielding:  it  may  not  be  war,  but  it  is  nevertheless 
magnificent. 

Fielding  in  this  fiction  is  remarkable  for  his  keen 
observation  of  every-day  life  and  character,  the  aver- 
age existence  in  town  and  country  of  mankind  high 
and  low:  he  is  a  truthful  reporter,  the  verisimilitude 
of  the  picture  is  part  of  its  attraction.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that,  pictorially,  he  is  the  first  great 
English  realist  of  the  Novel.  For  broad  comedy 
presentation  he  is  unsurpassed :  as  well  as  for  satiric 
gravity  of  comment  and  illustration.  It  may  be 
questioned,  however,  whether  Avhen  he  strives  to  de- 
pict the  deeper  phases  of  human  relations  he  is  so 
much  at  home  or  anything  like  so  happy.  There  is 
no  more  critical  test  of  a  novelist  than  his  handling 
of  the  love  passion.  Fielding  essays  in  "  Tom 
Jones "  to  show  the  love  between  two  very  likable 
flesh-and-blood  young  folk:  the  many  mishaps  of  the 
twain  being  but  an  embroidery  upon  the  accepted 
fact  that  the  course  of  true  love  never  did  run 
smooth.  There  is  a  certain  scene  which  gives  us 
an  interview  between  Jones  and  Sophia,  following  on 
a  stormy  one  between  father  and  daughter,  during 
which  the  Squire  has  struck  his  child  to  the  ground 


62      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

aiul  left  Ikt  there  with  hlood  ;uul  tears  streaming 
down  her  face.  Her  disobedience  in  not  accepting 
the  addresses  of  the  unspeakable  BHfil  is  the  cause 
of  the  somewliat  drastic  parental  treatment.  Jones 
has  assured  the  Squire  that  he  can  make  Sophia 
see  the  error  of  her  ways  and  has  thus  secured  a 
moment  with  her.  He  finds  her  just  risen  from  the 
ground,  in  the  sorry  plight  already  described.  Then 
follows  this  dialogue: 

"  '  O,  my  Sophia,  what  means  this  dreadful  sight?  ' 

"  She  looked  softly  at  him  for  a  moment  before 
she  spoke,  and  then  said : 

"  '  Mr.  Jones,  for  Heaven's  sake,  how  came  you 
here.''     Leave  me,  I  beseech  you,  this  moment.' 

"  '  Do  not,'  says  he,  '  impose  so  harsh  a  command 
upon  me.  My  heart  bleeds  faster  than  those  lips. 
O  Sophia,  how  easily  could  I  drain  my  veins  to  pre- 
serve one  drop  of  that  dear  blood.' 

"  '  I  have  too  many  obligations  to  you  already,' 
answered  she,  '  for  sure  you  meant  them  such.' 

"  Here  she  looked  at  him  tenderly  almost  a  minute, 
and  then  bursting  into  an  agony,  cried: 

"  *  Oh,  Mr.  Jones,  why  did  3'ou  save  my  life.'* 
My  death  would  have  been  happier  for  us  both.' 

"  '  Happy  for  us  both ! '  cried  he.  '  Could  racks 
or  wheels  kill  me  so  painfully  as  Sophia's — I  cannot 
bear  the  dreadful  sound.     Do  I  live  but  for  her.'' ' 

"  Both  his  voice  and  look  were  full  of  irrepressible 
tenderness  when  he  spoke  these  words ;  and  at  the 


FIELDING  63 

same  time  he  laid  gently  hold  on  her  hand,  which 
she  did  not  withdraAV  from  him;  to  say  the  truth, 
she  hardly  knew  what  she  did  or  suffered.  A  few 
moments  now  passed  in  silence  between  these 
lovers,  while  his  eyes  were  eagerly  fixed  on  Sophia, 
and  hers  declining  toward  the  ground;  at  last  she 
recovered  strength  enough  to  desire  him  again 
to  leave  her,  for  that  her  certain  ruin  would  be 
the  consequence  of  their  being  found  together; 
adding : 

"  '  Oh,  Mr.  Jones,  you  know  not,  you  know  not 
what   hath  passed  this   cruel  afternoon.' 

*' '  I  know  all,  my  Sophia,'  answered  he;  *  your 
cruel  father  hath  told  me  all,  and  he  himself  hath 
sent  me  hither  to  you.' 

"  '  My  father  sent  you  to  me ! '  replied  she :  '  sure 
you  dream ! ' 

"  *  Would  to  Heaven,'  cried  he,  '  it  was  but  a 
dream.  Oh !  Sophia,  your  father  hath  sent  me  to 
you,  to  be  an  advocate  for  my  odious  rival,  to  solicit 
you  in  his  favor.  I  took  any  means  to  get  access  to 
you.  O,  speak  to  me,  Sophia !  Comfort  my  bleed- 
ing heart.  Sure  no  one  ever  loved,  ever  doted,  like 
me.  Do  not  unkindly  withhold  this  dear,  this  soft, 
this  gentle  hand — one  moment  perhaps  tears  you 
forever  from  me.  Nothing  less  than  this  cruel  occa- 
sion could,  I  believe,  have  ever  conquered  the  respect 
and  love  with  which  you  have  inspired  me.' 

"  She   stood   a  moment   silent,   and   covered   with 


(It       MASri'.KS  OV  THK  KNCJLISII   NOVKL 

I'Diif'usioii  ;   tlicii,  lifting  up  her  cjcs  goiitlj   towards 
him,   slio   criod: 

*' '  What  would  INIr.  Jones  have  me  say? ' 
We  would  seem  to  have  here  a  writer  not  quite 
in  his  native  element.  He  intends  to  interest  us  in 
a  serious  situation.  Sophia  is  on  the  whole  natural 
and  winning,  although  one  may  stop  to  imagine  what 
kind  of  an  agony  is  that  which  allows  of  so  mathe- 
matical a  division  of  time  as  is  implied  in  the  state- 
ment that  she  looked  at  her  lover — ^tenderly,  too,  for- 
sooth ! — "  almost  a  minute."  The  mood  of  mathe- 
matics and  the  mood  of  emotion,  each  excellent  in 
itself,  do  not  go  together  in  hfe  as  they  do  in  eight- 
eenth century  fiction.  But  in  the  general  impression 
she  makes,  Sophia,  let  us  concede,  is  sweet  and  realiz- 
able. But  Jones,  whom  we  have  long  before  this  scene 
come  to  know  and  be  fond  of — Jones  is  here  a  prig,  a 
bore,  a  dummy.  Sir  Charles  Grandison  in  all  his 
woodenness  is  not  arra3'ed  like  one  of  these.  Consider 
the  situation  further :  Sophia  is  in  grief;  she  has  blood 
and  tears  on  her  face — what  would  any  lover, — nay, 
any  respectable  young  man  do  in  the  premises .''  Surely, 
stanch  her  wounds,  dry  her  eyes,  comfort  her  with 
a  homely  necessary  handkerchief.  But  not  so  Jones : 
he  is  not  a  real  man  but  a  melodramatic  lay-figure, 
playing  to  the  gallery  as  he  spouts  speeches  about 
the  purely  metaphqric  bleeding  of  his  heart,  oblivious 
of  the  disfigurement  of  his  sweetheart's  visage  from 
real  blood.     He  insults  her  by  addressing  her  in  the 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    65 

third  person,  mouths  sentiments  about  his  "  odious 
rival"  (a  phrase  with  a  superb  Bowery  smack  to 
it!)  and  in  general  so  disports  himself  as  to  make 
an  effect  upon  the  reader  of  complete  unreality. 
This  was  no  real  scene  to  Fielding  himself:  why  then 
should  it  be  true:  it  has  neither  the  accent  nor  the 
motion  of  life.  The  novelist  is  being  "  literary,"  is 
not  warm  to  his  work  at  all.  When  we  turn  from 
this  attempt  to  the  best  love  scenes  in  modern  hands, 
the  difference  is  world-wide.  And  this  unreality — 
which  violates  the  splendid  credibility  of  the  hero  in 
dozens  of  other  scenes  in  the  book, — is  all  the  worse 
coming  from  a  writer  who  expressly  announces  his 
intention  to  destroy  the  prevalent  conventional  hero 
of  fiction  and  set  up  something  better  in  his  place. 
Whereas  Tom  in  the  quoted  scene  is  nothing  if  not 
conventional  and  drawn  in  the  stock  tradition  of 
mawkish  heroics.  The  plain  truth  is  that  with  Field- 
ing love  is  an  appetite  rather  than  a  sentiment  and  he 
is  only  completely  at  ease  when  painting  its  rollick- 
ing, coarse  and  passional  aspects. 

In  its  unanalytic  method  and  loose  construction 
this  Novel,  compared  with  Richardson,  is  a  throw- 
back to  a  moi'e  primitive  pattern,  as  we  saw  was  the 
case  with  Fielding's  first  fiction.  But  in  another 
important  characteristic  of  the  modern  Novel  it  sur- 
passes anything  that  had  earlier  appeared:  I  refer 
to  the  way  it  puts  before  the  reader  a  great  variety 
of  human  beings,  so  that  a  sense  of  teeming  exist- 


66      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

ciicc  is  ^ivcii,  a  geimiiie  imitation  of  the  spatial  com- 
plexity of  life,  if  not  of  its  depths.  It  is  this  effect, 
afterwards  conveyed  in  fuller  measure  by  Balzac,  by 
Dickens,  by  ^'ictor  Huf:jo  and  by  Tolstoy,  that  gives 
us  the  leeling  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  master 
of  men,  whatever  his  limitations  of  period  or  person- 
ality. 

How  delightful  are  the  subsidiary  characters  in 
the  book !  One  such  is  Partridge,  the  unsophis- 
ticated schoolmaster  who,  when  he  attends  the  theater 
with  Tom  and  hears  Garrick  play  "  Hamlet,"  thinks 
but  poorly  of  the  player  because  he  only  does  what 
anybody  would  do  under  the  circumstances !  All- 
worthy  and  Blifil  one  may  object  to,  each  in  his 
kind,  for  being  conventionally  good  and  bad,  but 
in  numerous  male  characters  in  less  important  roles 
there  is  compensation:  the  gypsy  episode,  for  ex- 
ample, is  full  of  raciness  and  relish.  And  what 
a  gallej-y  of  women  we  get  in  the  story :  Mrs.  Honour 
the  maid,  and  Miss  Western  (who  in  some  sort  sug- 
gests Mrs.  Nickleby),  Mrs.  Miller,  Lady  Bellaston, 
Mrs.  Waters  and  other  light-of-loves  and  dames  of 
folly,  whose  dubious  doings  are  carried  off  with  such 
high  good  humor  that  we  are  inclined  to  overlook 
their  misdeeds.  There  is  a  Chaucerian  freshness 
about  it  all:  at  times  comes  the  wish  that  such  talent 
were  used  in  a  better  cause.  A  suitable  sub-title 
for  the  story,  would  be:  Or  Life  in  The  Tavern,  so 
large  a  share  do  Inns  have  in  its  unfolding.      Field- 


FIELDING  67 

ing  would  have  yielded  hearty  assent  to  Dr.  John- 
son's dictum  that  a  good  inn  stood  for  man's  highest 
felicity  here  below :  he  relished  the  wayside  comforts 
of  cup  and  bed  and  company  which  they  afford. 

"  Tom  Jones  "  quickly  crossed  the  seas,  was  ad- 
mired in  foreign  lands.  I  possess  a  manuscript  let- 
ter of  Heine's  dated  from  Mainz  in  1830,  requesting 
a  friend  to  send  him  this  novel :  the  German  poet 
represents,  in  the  request,  the  literary  class  which 
has  always  lauded  Fielding's  finest  effort,  while  the 
wayfaring  man  who  picks  it  up,  also  finds  it  to  his 
liking.  Thus  it  secures  and  is  safe  in  a  double 
audience.  Yet  we  must  return  to  the  thought  that 
such  a  work  is  strictly  less  significant  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  modern  Novel,  because  of  its  form,  its 
reversion  to  type,  than  the  model  established  by  a 
man  like  Richardson,  who  is  so  much  more  restricted 
in  gift. 

Fielding's  fourth  and  final  story,  "  Amelia,"  was 
given  to  the  world  two  years  later,  and  but  three 
years  before  his  premature  death  at  Lisbon  at  the 
age  of  forty-nine — worn  out  by  irregular  living  and 
the  vicissitudes  of  a  career  which  had  been  checkered 
indeed.  He  did  strenuous  work  as  a  Justice  these 
last  years  and  carried  on  an  efficacious  campaign 
against  criminals :  but  the  lights  were  dimming,  the 
play  was  nearly  over.  The  pure  gust  of  life  which 
runs  rampant  and  riotous  in  the  pages  of  "  Tom 
Jones  "  is  tempered  in  "  Amelia  "  by  a  quieter,  sad- 


68       MASTKHS  OF    i'lIK   KNGI.ISII   NOVEL 

dcr  tone  aiul  u  more  pliilo.sopliic  vision.  It  is  in 
this  way  a  less  characteristic  work,  for  it  was  of 
Fielding's  nature  to  be  instantly  responsive  to  good 
cheer  and  the  creature  comforts  of  life.  When  she 
got  the  news  of  his  death,  Lady  Mary  wrote  of  him: 
"  His  happy  constitution  (even  when  he  had,  with 
great  pains,  half  demolished  it)  made  him  forget 
everytliing  when  he  was  before  a  venison  pastry  or 
over  a  flask  of  champagne ;  and  I  am  persuaded 
he  has  known  more  happy  moments  than  any  prince 
upon  earth.  His  natural  spirits  gave  him  rapture 
with  his  cook-maid  and  cheerfulness  in  a  garret." 
Here  is  a  kit-kat  showing  the  man  indeed:  all  his 
fiction  may  be  read  in  the  light  of  it.  The  main 
interest  in  "  Amelia  "  is  found  in  its  autobiograph- 
ical flavor,  for  the  story,  in  describing  the  fortunes — 
or  rather  misfortunes — of  Captain  Booth  and  his 
wife,  drew,  it  is  pretty  certain,  upon  Fielding's  own 
traits  and  to  some  extent  upon  the  incidents  of  his 
earlier  life.  The  scenes  where  the  Captain  sets  up 
for  a  country  gentleman  with  his  horses  and  hounds 
and  speedily  runs  through  his  patrimony,  is  a  tran- 
script of  his  own  experience:  and  Amelia  herself 
is  a  sort  of  memorial  to  his  well-beloved  first  wife 
(he  had  married  for  a  second  his  honest,  good- 
hearted  kitchen-maid),  who  out  of  affection  must 
have  endured  so  much  in  daily  contact  with  such 
a  character  as  that  of  her  charming  husband.  In 
the  novel,  Mrs.  Booth  always  forgivQs,  even  as  the 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  BEGINNINGS    69 

Captain  ever  goes  wrong.  There  would  be  some- 
thing sad  in  such  a  clear-eyed  comprehension  of 
one's  own  weakness,  if  we  felt  compelled  to  accept 
the  theory  that  he  was  here  drawing  his  own  like- 
ness; which  must  not  be  pushed  too  far,  for  the 
Captain  is  one  thing  Fielding  never  was — to  wit, 
stupid.  There  is  in  the  book  much  realism  of  scene 
and  incident ;  but  its  lack  of  animal  spirits  has  al- 
ways militated  against  the  popularity  of  "  Amelia  " ; 
in  fact,  it  is  accurate  to  say  that  Fielding's  con- 
temporary public,  and  the  reading  world  ever  since, 
has  confined  its  interest  in  his  work  to  "  Joseph 
Andrews  "  and  "  Tom  Jones.'* 

The  pathos  of  his  ending,  dying  in  Portugal 
whither  he  had  gone  on  a  vain  quest  for  health, 
and  his  companionable  qualities  whether  as  man  or 
author,  can  but  make  him  a  more  winsome  figure 
to  us  than  proper  little  Mr.  Richardson ;  and  pos- 
sibly this  feeling  has  affected  the  comparative  esti- 
mates of  the  two  writers.  One  responds  readily  to 
the  sentiment  of  Austin  Dobson's  fine  poem  on  Field- 
ing: 

"  Beneath  the  green  Estrella  trees. 
No  artist  merely,  but  a  man 
Wrought  on  our  noblest  island-plan. 
Sleeps  with   the  alien   Portuguese," 

And  in  the  same  way  we  are  sympathetic  with  Thack- 
eray in  the  lecture  on  the  English  humorists :  "  Such 
a   brave   and   gentle   heart,   such    an    intrepid   and 


70       MASTERS  OF  THK  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

courageous  spirit,  I  love  to  rccorjnizc  in  tlie  manly, 
the  Englisli  Harry  Fielding."  Imagine  any  later 
critic  calling  Riclianlson  ''Sam!"  It  is  inconceiv- 
able. 

Such  then  were  the  two  men  who  founded  the  Eng- 
lish Novel,  and  such  their  work.  Unlike  in  many  re- 
spects, both  as  personalities  and  literary  makers, 
they  were,  after  all,  alike  in  this:  they  showed  the 
feasibility  of  making  the  life  of  contemporary  so- 
ciety interesting  in  prose  fiction.  That  was  their 
great  common  triumph  and  it  remains  the  keynote 
of  ..all  the  subsequent  development  in  fiction.  They 
accomplished  this,  each  in  his  own  way:  Richardson 
by  sensibility  often  degenerating  into  sentimentality, 
and  by  analysis — the  subjective  method;  Fielding 
by  satire  and  humor  (often  coarse,  sometimes  bitter) 
and  the  wide  envisagement  of  action  and  scene — the 
method  objective.  Richardson  exhibits  a  somewhat 
straitened  propriety  and  a  narrow  didactic  trades- 
man's morality,  with  which  we  are  now  out  of  S3nii- 
pathy.  Fielding,  on  the  contrar\%  with  the  abuse 
of  his  good  gift  for  tolerant  painting  of  seamy 
human  nature,  gives  way  often  to  an  indulgence 
of  the  lower  instincts  of  mankind  which,  though 
faithfully  reflecting  his  age,  are  none  the  less  un- 
pleasant to  modern  taste.  Both  are  men  of  genius, 
Fielding's  being  the  larger  and  more  universal: 
nothing   but   genius   could   have   done   such   original 


FIELDING  71 

things  as  were  achieved  by  the  two.  Nevertheless, 
set  beside  the  great  masters  of  fiction  who  were  to 
come,  and  who  will  be  reviewed  in  these  pages,  they 
are  seen  to  have  been  excelled  in  art  and  at  least 
equaled  in  gift  and  power.  So  much  we  may  prop- 
erly claim  for  the  marvelous  growth  and  ultimate 
degree  of  perfection  attained  by  the  best  novel-mak- 
ers of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries.  It 
remains  now  to  show  what  part  was  played  in  the 
eighteenth  century  development  by  certain  other 
novelists,  who,  while  not  of  the  supreme  importance 
of  these  two  leaders,  yet  each  and  all  contributed 
to  the  shaping  of  the  new  fiction  and  did  their  share 
in  leaving  it  at  the  century's  end  a  perfected  instru- 
ment, to  be  handled  by  a  finished  artist  like  Jane 
Austen.  We  must  take  some  cognizance,  in  special, 
of  writers  like  Smollett  and  Sterne  and  Goldsmith 
— potent  names,  evoking  some  of  the  pleasantest 
memories  open  to  one  who  browses  in  the  rich  meadow 
lands  of  English  literature. 


CHAPTER  IV 

DEVELOPMENTS;    SMOLLETT,   STERNE    AND 
OTHERS 

The  popularity  of  Richardson  and  Fielding  showed 
itself  in  a  hearty  public  welcome :  and  also  in  that 
sincerest  form  of  flattery,  imitation.  INIany  authors 
began  to  write  the  new  fiction.  Where  once  a 
definite  demand  is  recognized  in  literature,  the 
supply,  more  or  less  machine-made,  is  sure  to 
follow. 

In  the  short  quarter  of  a  century  between  "  Pam- 
ela "  and  "The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  the  Novel 
got  its  growth,  passed  out  of  leading  strings  into 
what  may  fairly  be  called  independence  and  ma- 
turity: and  by  the  time  Goldsmith's  charming  little 
classic  was  written,  the  shelves  were  comfortably 
filled  with  novels  recent  or  current,  giving  con- 
temporary literature  quite  the  air  so  familiar  to-day. 
Only  a  little  later,  we  find  the  Gentleman  s  Maga- 
zine, a  trustworthy  reporter  of  such  matters,  speak- 
ing of  "  this  novel-writing  age."  The  words  were 
written  in  1773,  a  generation  after  Richardson  had 
begun  the  form.  Still  more  striking  testimony,  so 
far  back  as  1755,  when  Richardson's  maiden  story 

72 


DEVELOPMENTS  73 

was  but  a  dozen  years  old,  a  writer  in  "  The  Con- 
noisseur "  is  facetiously  proposing  to  establish  a  fac- 
tory for  the  fashioning  of  novels,  with  one,  a  master 
workman,  to  furnish  plots  and  subordinates  to  fill 
in  the  details — an  anticipation  of  the  famous  literary 
menage  of  Dumas  pere. 

Although  there  was,  under  these  conditions,  in- 
evitable imitation  of  the  new  model,  there  was  a 
deeper  reason  for  the  rapid  development.  The  time 
was  ripe  for  this  kind  of  fiction:  it  was  in  the  air,, 
as  we  have  already  tried  to  suggest.  Hence,  other 
fiction-makers  began  to  experiment  with  the  form, 
this  being  especially  true  of  Smollett.  Out  of  many 
novelists,  feeble  or  truly  called,  a  few  of  the  most 
important  must  be  mentioned. 


The  Scotch-bom  Tobias  Smollett  published  his 
first  fiction,  "  Roderick  Random,"  eight  years  after 
"  Pamela  "  had  appeared,  and  the  year  before  "  Tom 
Jones  " ;  it  was  exactly  contemporaneous  with  "  Cla- 
rissa Harlowe."  A  strict  contemporary,  then,  with 
Richardson  and  Fielding,  he  was  also  the  ablest  novel- 
ist aside  from  them,  a  man  whose  work  was  most  in- 
fluential in  the  later  development.  It  is  not  unusual 
to  dismiss  him  in  a  sentence  as  a  coarser  Fielding. 
The  characterization  hits  nearer  the  bull's  eye  than 
is  the  rule  with  such  sayings,  and  more  vulgar  than 


71       MASTERS  OF  THE   ENGLISH   NOVEL 

tho  rrroatcr  writer  he  certainly  is,  brutal  where  Field- 
ing is  vi^]Poroiis :  and  he  exhibits  and  exaggerates  tlic 
lattcr's  tendencies  to  the  picaresque,  the  burlesque 
and  the  episodic.  His  fiction  is  of  the  elder  school 
in  its  loose  fiber,  its  external  method  of  dealing  with 
incident  and  character.  There  is  little  or  nothing 
in  Smollett  of  the  firm-knit  texture  and  subjective 
analysis  of  the  moderns.  Thus  the  resemblances  are 
superficial,  the  differences  deeper-going  and  palpa- 
ble. Smollett  is  often  violent,  Fielding  never:  there 
is  an  impression  of  cosmopolitanism  in  the  former^ — 
a  wider  survey  of  life,  if  only  on  the  surface,  is 
given  in  his  books.  By  birth,  Smollett  was  of  the 
gentry;  but  by  the  time  he  was  twenty  he  had  seen 
service  as  Surgeon's  Mate  in  the  British  navy,  and 
his  after  career  as  Tory  Editor,  at  times  in  prison, 
literary  man  and  traveler  who  visited  many  lands  and 
finally,  like  Fielding,  died  abroad  in  Italy,  was  check- 
ered enough  to  give  him  material  and  to  spare  for 
the  changeful  bustle,  so  rife  with  action  and  excite- 
ment, of  his  four  principal  stories.  Like  the  Amer- 
ican Cooper,  he  drew  upon  his  own  expei'iences  for 
his  picture  of  the  navy;  and  like  a  later  American, 
Dr.  Holmes,  was  a  physician  who  could  speak  by  the 
card  of  that  side  of  life. 

Far  more  closely  than  Fielding  he  followed  the 
"  Gil  Bias  "  model,  depending  for  interest  primarily 
upon  adventures  by  the  way,  moving  accidents  by 
flood  and  field.      He  declares,  in  fact,  his  intention 


SMOLLETT,  STERNE  AND  OTHERS        75 

to  use  Le  Sage  as  a  literary  father  and  he  translated 
"  Gil  Bias."  In  striking  contrast,  too,  with  Fielding 
is  the  interpretation  of  life  one  gets  from  his  books; 
with  the  author  of  "  Tom  Jones  "  we  feel,  what  we 
do  in  greater  degree  with  Shakespeare  and  Balzac, 
that  the  personality  of  the  fiction-maker  is  healthily 
merged  in  his  characters,  in  the  picture  of  life.  But 
in  the  case  of  Dr.  Smollett,  there  is  a  strongly  in- 
dividual satiric  bias:  less  of  that  largeness  which 
sees  the  world  from  an  unimplicated  coign  of  vant- 
age, whence  the  open-eyed,  wise-minded  spectator 
finds  it  a  comedy  breeding  laughter  under  thoughtful 
brows.  We  seem  to  be  getting  not  so  much  scenes 
of  life  as  an  author's  setting  of  the  scene  for  his  own 
private  reasons.  Such  is  at  least  the  occasional 
effect  of  Smollett.  Also  is  there  more  of  bitterness, 
of  savagery  in  him :  and  where  Fielding  was  broad 
and  racily  frank  in  his  handling  of  delicate  themes, 
this  fellow  is  indecent  with  a  kind  of  hardness  and 
brazenness  which  are  amazing.  The  difference  be- 
tween plain-speaking  and  unclean  speaking  could 
hardly  be  better  illustrated.  It  should  be  added,  in 
justice,  that  even  Smollett  is  rarely  impure  with  the 
alluring  saliency  of  certain  modern  fiction. 

In  the  first  story,  "  The  Adventures  of  Roderick 
Random  "  (the  cumbrous  full  titles  of  earlier  fiction 
are  for  apparent  reasons  frequently  curtailed  in  the 
present  treatment),  published  when  the  author  was 
twenty-seven,  he  avails  himself  of  a  residence  of  some 


76      .MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

years  in  Jamaica  to  depict  life  in  that  quarter  of 
the  world  at  a  time  when  the  local  color  had  the 
cliarm  of  novelty.  The  story  is  often  credited  with 
heiiio-  autobiographic,  as  a  novelist's  first  book  is 
likely  to  be;  since,  by  popular  belief,  there  is  one 
story  in  all  of  us,  namely,  our  own.  Its  description 
of  the  hero's  hard  knocks  does,  indeed,  suggest  the 
fate  of  a  man  so  stormily  quarrelsome  throughout 
his  days :  for  this  red-headed  Scot,  this  "  hack  of 
genius,"  as  Henley  picturesquely  calls  him,  was 
naturall}'  a  fighting  man  and,  whether  as  man  or 
author,  attacks  or  repels  sharply:  there  is  nothing 
uncertain  in  the  effect  he  makes.  His  loud  vigor 
is  as  pronounced  as  that  of  a  later  Scot  like  Carlyle ; 
yet  he  stated  long  afterward  that  the  likeness  be- 
tween himself  and  Roderick  was  slight  and  super- 
ficial. The  fact  that  the  tale  is  written  in  the  first 
person  also  helps  the  autobiographic  theory:  that 
method  of  story-making  always  lends  a  certain  cred- 
ence to  the  narrative.  The  scenes  shift  from  west- 
ern Scotland  to  the  streets  of  London,  thence  to 
the  West  Indies:  and  tlie  interest  (the  remark  ap- 
plies to  all  Smollett's  work)  lies  in  just  three  things 
— adventure,  diversity  of  character,  and  the  real- 
istic picture  of  contemporary  life — especially  that 
of  the  navy  on  a  day  when,  if  Smollett  is  within 
hailing  distance  of  the  facts,  it  was  terribly  corrupt. 
Too  much  credit  can  hardly  be  given  him  for  first 
using,  so  effectively  too,  the  professional  sea-life  of 


DEVELOPMENTS  77 

his  country :  a  motive  so  richly  productive  since 
through  ]Marr3^at  clown  to  Dana,  Herman  Melville, 
Clark  Russell  and  many  other  favorite  writers,  both 
British  and  American.  In  Smollett's  hands,  it  is 
a  strange  muddle  of  religion,  farce  and  smut,  but 
set  forth  with  a  vivid  particularity  and  a  gusto  of 
high  spirits  which  carry  the  reader  along,  willy-nilly. 
Such  a  book  might  be  described  by  the  advertisement 
of  an  old  inn :  "  Here  is  entertainment  for  man  and 
beast.'*  As  to  characterization,  if  a  genius  for  it 
means  the  creation  of  figures  which  linger  in  the 
familiar  memory  of  mankind,  Smollett  must  perforce 
be  granted  the  faculty ;  here  in  his  first  book  are 
Tom  Bowling  and  Strap — to  name  two — the  one 
(like  Richardson's  Lovelace)  naming  a  type:  the 
other  standing  for  the  country  innocent,  the  meek 
fidus  Achates,  both  as  good  as  anything  of  the  same 
class  in  Fielding.  The  Welsh  mate,  Mr.  Morgan, 
for  another  of  the  sailor  sort,  is  also  excellent.  The 
judgment  may  be  eccentric,  but  for  myself  the  char- 
acter parts  in  Smollett's  dramas  seem  for  variety 
and  vividness  often  superior  to  those  of  Fielding. 
The  humor  at  its  best  is  very  telling.  The  portraits, 
or  caricatures,  of  living  folk  added  to  the  story's 
immediate  vogue,  but  injure  it  as  a  permanent  con- 
tribution to  fiction. 

A  fair  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  attractions  offered 
(and  at  the  same  time  a  clear  indication  of  the  sort 
of  fiction  manufactured  by  the  doughty  doctor)  may 


78       MASTERS  OF  TIIK  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

be  gleaned  from  tlic  following  precis — Smollett's  own 
— of  Chapter  XXXN'III:  **  I  get  up  and  crawl  into 
a  barn  where  I  am  in  danger  of  perishing  through 
the  fear  of  the  country  j)e<iplc.  Their  inhumanity. 
I  am  succored  by  a  reputed  witch.  Her  story.  Her 
advice.  She  recommends  me  as  a  valet  to  a  single 
lady  whose  character  she  explains."  This  promises 
pretty  fair  reading:  of  course,  we  wish  to  read  on 
and  to  learn  more  of  that  single  lady  and  the  hero's 
relation  to  her.  Such  a  motive,  which  might  be 
called,  "  The  Mistakes  of  a  Night,"  with  details  too 
crude  and  physical  to  allow  of  discussion,  is  often 
overworked  by  Smollett  (as,  in  truth,  it  is  by  Field- 
ing, to  modern  taste)  :  the  eighteenth  century  had 
not  yet  given  up  the  call  of  the  Beast  in  its  fiction — 
an  element  of  bawdry  was  still  welcome  in  the  print 
offered  reputable  folk. 

The  style  of  Smollett  in  his  first  fiction,  and  in 
general,  has  marked  dramatic  flavor:  his  is  a  gift  of 
forthright  phrase,  a  plain,  vernacular  smack  char- 
acterizes his  diction.  To  go  back  to  him  now  is 
to  be  surprised  perhaps  at  the  racy  vigor  of  so  faulty 
a  writer  and  novelist.  A  page  or  so  of  Smollett, 
after  a  course  in  present-day  popular  fiction,  reads 
very  much  like  a  piece  of  literature.  In  this  re- 
spect, he  seems  full  of  flavor,  distinctly  of  the  major 
breed:  there  is  an  effect  of  passing  from  attenuated 
parlor  tricks  into  the  open,  when  you  take  him  up. 
Here,    you    can    but    feel,   is    a  masculine    man    of 


SMOLLETT,  STERNE  AND  OTHERS        79 

letters,  even  if  it  is  his  fate  to  play  second  fiddle  to 
Fielding. 

Smollett's  initial  story  was  a  pronounced  success 
with  the  public — and  he  aired  an  arrogant  joy  and 
pooh-poohed  insignificant  rivals  like  Fielding.  His 
hand  was  against  every  man's  when  it  came  to  the 
question  of  literary  prowess ;  and  like  many  authors 
before  and  since,  one  of  his  first  acts  upon  the  kind 
reception  of  "  Roderick  Random,"  was  to  get  pub- 
lished his  worthless  blank-verse  tragedy,  "  The  Regi- 
cide," which,  refused  by  Garrick,  had  till  then  lan- 
guished in  manuscript  and  was  an  ugly  duckling  be- 
loved of  its  maker.  Then  came  Novel  number  two, 
*'  The  Adventures  of  Peregrine  Pickle,"  three  years 
after  the  first:  an  unequal  book,  best  at  its  begin- 
ning and  end,  full  of  violence,  not  on  the  whole 
such  good  art-work  as  the  earlier  fiction,  yet  very 
fine  in  spots  and  containing  such  additional  sea-dogs 
as  Commodore  Trunnion  and  Lieutenant  Hatchway, 
whose  presence  makes  one  forgive  much.  The  orig- 
inal preface  contained  a  scurrilous  reference  to 
Fielding,  against  whom  he  printed  a  diatribe  in  a 
pamphlet  dated  the  next  year.  The  hero  of  the 
story,  a  handsome  ne'er-do-well  who  has  money  and 
position  to  start  the  world  with,  encounters  plenty  of 
adventure  in  England  and  out  of  it,  by  land  and  sea. 
There  Is  an  episodic  book,  "  Memoirs,  supposed  to 
be  written  by  a  lady  of  quality,"  and  really  giving 
the  checkered  career  of  Lady  Vane,  a  fast  gentle- 


so   MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

woman  of  the  time,  done  for  pay  at  licr  request, 
wliic'h  is  illustrative  of  the  loose  state  of  fictional 
art  in  its  mireiateci,  lu^f^od-in  character:  and  as  well 
of  eighteenth  century  morals  in  its  drastic  details. 
We  have  seen  that  Fielding  was  frankly  episodic  in 
handling  a  story;  Smollett  goes  him  one  better:  as 
may  most  notoriously  be  seen  also  in  the  unmen- 
tionable iNIiss  Williams'  story  in  "  Roderick  Ran- 
dom " — in  fact,  throughout  his  novels.  Pickle,  to 
put  it  mildlj',  is  not  an  admirable  young  man.  An 
author's  conception  of  his  hero  is  always  in  some 
sort  a  give-away :  it  expresses  his  ideals ;  that  Smol- 
lett's are  sufficiently  low-pitched,  may  be  seen  liere. 
Plainly,  too,  he  likes  Peregrine,  and  not  so  much 
excuses  his  failings  as  overlooks  them  entirely. 

After  a  two  years'  interval  came  "  Tlie  Adventures 
of  Ferdinand,  Count  Fathom,"  which  was  not  liked 
by  his  contemporaries  and  is  now  seen  to  be  definitely 
the  poorest  of  the  quartette.  It  is  enough  to  say 
of  it  that  Fathom  is  an  unmitigable  scoundrel  and  the 
story,  mixed  romance  and  melodrama,  offers  the 
reader  dust  and  ashes  instead  of  good  red  blood. 
It  lacks  the  comic  verve  of  Smollett's  typical  fiction 
and  manipulates  virtue  and  vice  in  the  cut-and-dried 
style  of  the  penny-dreadful.  Even  its  attempts  at 
the  sensational  leave  the  modern  reader,  bred  on  such 
heavenly  fare  as  is  proffered  by  Stevenson  and  others, 
indifferent-cold. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  turn  from  it  to  what  is  gen- 


DEVELOPMENTS  81 

erallj  conceded  to  be  the  best  novel  he  wrote,  as  it 
is  his  last :  "  The  Expedition  of  Humphrey  Clinker," 
which  appeared  nearly  twenty  years  later,  when  the 
author  was  fifty  years  old.  "  The  Adventures  of 
Sir  Launcelot  Graves,"  written  in  prison  a  decade 
earlier,  and  a  poor  satire  in  the  vein  of  Cervantes, 
can  be  ignored,  it  falls  so  much  below  Smollett's 
main  fiction.  He  had  gone  for  his  health's  sake  to 
Italy  and  wrote  "  Humphrey  Clinker  "  at  Leghorn, 
completing  it  only  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death. 
For  years  he  had  been  degenerating  as  a  writer,  his 
physical  condition  was  of  the  worst :  it  looked  as  if 
his  life  was  quite  over.  Yet,  by  a  sort  of  leaping-up 
of  the  creative  flame  out  of  the  dying  embers  of  the 
hearth,  he  wrought  his  masterpiece. 

It  was  thrown  into  letter  form,  Richardson's  frame- 
work, and  has  all  of  Smollett's  earlier  power  of 
characterization  and  brusque  wit,  together  with  a 
more  genial,  mellower  tone,  that  of  an  older  man  not 
soured  but  ripened  by  the  years.  Some  of  its  main 
scenes  are  enacted  in  his  native  Scotland  and  pos- 
sibly this  meant  strength  for  another  Scot,  as  it 
did  for  Sir  Walter  and  Stevenson.  The  kinder  in- 
terpretation of  humanity  in  itself  makes  the  novel 
better  reading  to  later  taste;  so  much  can  not  hon- 
estly be  said  for  its  plain  speaking,  for  as  Henley 
says  in  language  which  sounds  as  if  it  were  borrowed 
from  the  writer  he  is  describing,  "  the  stinks  and 
Hastinesses  are  done  with  peculiar  gusto."      The  idea 


82      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

of  tlic  stor>',  as  usual  a  pivot  around  which  to  re- 
volve a  scries  of  adventures,  is  to  narrate  how  a 
certain  bachelor,  country  gentleman,  Matthew 
Bramble,  a  malade  imnginairc,  yet  good-hearted  and 
capable  of  big  laughter — "  the  most  risible  misan- 
thrope ever  met  with,"  as  he  is  limned  by  one  of 
the  persons  of  the  story — travels  in  England,  Wales 
and  Scotland  in  pursuit  of  health,  taking  with  him 
his  family,  of  whom  the  main  members  include  his 
sister,  Tabitha  (and  her  maid,  Jenkins),  and  his 
nephew,  not  overlooking  the  dog.  Chowder.  Clinker, 
who  names  the  book,  is  a  subsidiary  character,  merely 
a  servant  in  Bramble's  establishment.  The  crotchety 
Bramble  and  his  acidulous  sister,  who  is  a  forerunner 
of  Mrs.  Malaprop  in  the  unreliability  of  her  spelling, 
and  Lieutenant  Lishmahago,  who  has  been  compli- 
mented as  the  first  successful  Scotchman  in  fiction — 
all  these  are  sketched  with  a  verity  and  in  a  vein 
of  genuine  comic  invention  which  have  made  them 
remembered.  Violence,  rage,  filth — Smollett's  beset- 
ting sins — are  forgotten  or  forgiven  in  a  book  which 
has  so  much  of  the  flavor  and  movement  of  life. 
The  author's  medical  lore  is  made  good  use  of  in 
the  humorous  descriptions  of  poor  Bramble's  ail- 
ments. Incidentally,  the  story  defends  the  Scotch 
against  the  English  in  such  a  pronounced  way  that 
Walpole  calls  it  a  "  party  novel " ;  and  there  is, 
moreover,  a  pleasant  love  story  interwoven  with  the 
comedy   and  burlesque.       One   feels   in   leaving  this 


SMOLLETT,  STERNE  AND  OTHERS        83 

fiction  that  with  all  allowance  for  his  defects,  there 
is  more  danger  of  undervaluing  the  author's  powers 
and  place  in  the  modern  Novel  than  the  reverse. 

Fielding  and  Smollett  together  set  the  pace  for 
the  Novel  of  blended  incident  and  character:  both 
were,  as  sturdy  realists,  reactionary  from  the  sen- 
timental analysis  of  Richardson  and  express  an  in- 
stinct contrary  to  the  self-conscious  pathos  of  a 
Sterne  or  the  idyllic  romanticism  of  a  Goldsmith. 
Both  were  directly  of  influence  upon  the  Novel's 
growth  in  the  nineteenth  century :  Fielding  especially 
upon  Thackeray,  Smollett  upon  Dickens.  If  Smol- 
lett had  served  the  cause  in  no  other  way  than  in 
his  strong  effect  upon  the  author  of  "  The  Pickwick 
Papers,"  he  would  deserve  well  of  all  critics :  how  the 
little  Copperfield  delighted  in  that  scant  collection 
of  books  on  his  father's  bookshelf,  where  were  *'  Rod- 
erick Random,"  "  Peregrine  Pickle  "  and  "  Hum- 
phrey Clinker,"  along  with  "  Tom  Jones,"  "  The 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  "Gil  Bias"  and  "Robinson 
Crusoe  " — "  a  glorious  host,"  says  he,  "  to  keep  me 
company.  They  kept  alive  my  fancy  and  my  hope 
of  something  beyond  that  time  and  place."  And  of 
Smollett's  characters,  who  seem  to  have  charmed  him 
more  than  Fielding's,  he  declares :  "  I  have  seen  Tom 
Pipes  go  clambering  up  the  church-steeple:  I  have 
watched  Strap  with  the  knapsack  on  his  back  stop- 
ping to  rest  himself  upon  the  wicket  gate:  and  I 
know  that  Commodore  Trunnion  held  that  Club  with 


84   MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

IMr.  Pickle  in  the  parlor  of  our  little  village  ale 
house."  Children  are  shrewd  critics,  in  their  way, 
and  what  an  embryo  Charles  Dickens  likes  in  fiction 
is  not  to  be  slighted.  But  as  we  have  seen,  Smollett 
can  base  his  claims  to  our  sufferance  not  by  indirec- 
tion through  Dickens,  but  upon  his  worth ;  many  be- 
sides the  later  and  greater  novelist  have  a  liking  for 
this  racy  writer  of  adventure,  and  creator  of  English 
types,  who  was  recognized  by  Walter  Scott  as  of 
kin  to  the  great  in  fiction. 

n 

In  the  fast-developing  fiction  of  the  late  eighteenth 
century,  the  possible  ramifications  of  the  Novel  from 
the  parent  tree  of  Richardson  enriched  it  with  the 
work  of  Sterne,  Swift  and  Goldsmith.  They  added 
imaginative  narratives  of  one  sort  or  another,  which 
increased  the  content  of  the  form  by  famous  things 
and  exercised  some  influence  in  shaping  it.  The  re- 
mark has  in  mind  "  Tristram  Shandy,"  "  Gulliver's 
Travels  "  and  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield."  And  yet, 
no  one  of  the  three  was  a  Novel  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  evolution  of  the  word  has  been  traced,  nor  yet 
are  the  authors  strictly  novelists. 

Laurence  Sterne,  at  once  man  of  the  world  and 
clergyman,  with  Rabelais  as  a  model,  and  himself  a 
master  of  prose,  possessing  command  of  humor  and 
pathos,   skilled   in    character   sketch   and   essay-phi- 


DEVELOPMENTS'  85 

losophy,  is  not  a  novelist  at  all.  His  aim  is  not  to 
depict  the  traits  or  events  of  contemporary  society, 
but  to  put  forth  the  views  of  the  Reverend  Laurence 
Sterne,  Yorkshire  parson,  with  many  a  quaint  turn 
and  whimsical  situation  under  a  thin  disguise  of 
story-form.  Of  his  two  books,  "  Tristram  Shandy  " 
and  "  The  Sentimental  Journey,"  unquestionable 
classics,  both,  in  their  field,  there  is  no  thought  of 
plot  or  growth  or  objective  realization:  the  former 
is  a  delightful  tour  de  force  in  which  a  born  essayist 
deals  with  the  imaginary  fortunes  of  a  person  he 
makes  as  interesting  before  his  birth  as  after  it,  and 
in  passing,  sketches  some  characters  dear  to  pos- 
terity: first  and  foremost.  Uncle  Toby  and  Corporal 
Trim.  It  is  all  pure  play  of  wit,  fancy  and  wisdom, 
beneath  the  comic  mask — a  very  frolic  of  the  mind. 
In  the  second  book  the  framework  is  that  of  the 
travel-sketch  and  the  treatment  more  objective:  a 
fact  which,  along  with  its  dubious  propriety,  may 
account  for  its  greater  popularity.  But  much  of 
the  charm  comes,  as  before,  from  the  writer's  touch, 
his  gift  of  style  and  ability  to  unloose  in  the  essay 
manner  a  unique  individuality. 

In  his  life  Sterne,  like  Swift,  exhibited  most  un- 
clerical  traits  of  worldliness  and  in  his  work  there  is 
the  refined,  suggestive  indelicacy,  not  to  say  in- 
decency, which  we  are  in  the  habit  nowadays  of 
charging  against  the  French,  and  which  is  so  much 
worse  than  the  bluff,  outspoken  coarseness  of  a  Field- 


8(j      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

inrr  or  ii  Smollett.  At  times  the  line  between  Sterne 
and  Charles  Lamb  is  not  so  easy  to  draw  in  that, 
from  first  to  last,  the  elder  is  an  essayist  and  humor- 
ist, wliilc  the  youn^'er  has  so  much  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  his  feeling  and  manner.  In  these  modern 
times,  when  so  many  essayists  appear  in  the  guise 
of  fiction-makers,  we  can  see  that  Sterne  is  really  the 
leader  of  the  tribe:  and  it  is  not  hard  to  show  how 
neither  he  nor  they  are  novelists  divinely  called. 
They  (and  he)  may  be  great,  but  it  is  another  great- 
ness. The  point  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  state- 
ment that  Sterne  was  eight  years  publishing  the 
various  parts  of  "  Tristram  Shandy,"  and  a  man  of 
forty-six  when  he  began  to  do  so.  Bona  fide  novels 
are  not  thus  written.  Constructively,  the  work  is 
a  mad  farrago ;  but  the  end  quite  justifies  the  means. 
Thus,  while  his  place  in  letters  is  assured,  and  the 
touch  of  the  cad  in  him  (Goldsmith  called  him  "the 
blackguard  parson  ")  should  never  blind  us  to  his 
prime  merits,  his  significance  for  our  particular  study 
— the  study  of  the  modem  Novel  in  its  development 
^'=— is  comparatively  slight.  Like  all  essayists  of  rank 
he  left  memorable  passages:  the  world  never  tires  of 
"  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb,"  and 
pays  it  the  high  compliment  of  ascribing  it  to  holy 
writ:  nor  will  the  scene  where  the  recording  angel 
blots  out  Uncle  Toby's  generous  oath  with  a  tear, 
\  fade  from  the  mind ;  nor  that  of  the  same  kindly 
gentleman  letting  go  the  big  fly  wliich  has,  to  his 


SMOLLETT,  STERNE  AND  OTHERS        87 

discomfiture,  been  buzzing  about  his  nose  at  dinner: 
"  '  Go,'  says  he,  lifting  up  the  latch  and  opening  his 
hand  as  he  spoke  to  let  it  escape.  '  Go,  poor  devil, 
get  thee  gone,  why  should  I  hurt  thee?  The  world 
surely  is  wide  enough  to  hold  both  thee  and  me  '  " — 
a  touch  so  modern  as  to  make  Sterne  seem  a  century 
later  than  Fielding.  These  are  among  the  precious 
places  of  literature.  This  eighteenth  century  di- 
vine has  in  advance  of  his  day  the  subtler  sensibility 
which  was  to  grow  so  strong  in  later  fiction :  and 
if  he  be  sentimental  too,  he  gives  us  a  sentimentality 
unlike  the  solemn  article  of  Richardson,  because  of 
its  French  grace  and  its  relief  of  delicious  humor. 

Ill 

Swift  chronologically  precedes  Sterne,  for  in  1726, 
shortly  after  "  Robinson  Crusoe  "  and  a  good  fifteen 
years    before    "  Pamela,"    he    gave    the    world    that 
unique  lucubration,  "  Gulliver's   Travels,"   allegory,    ^^„^ 
satire  and  fairy  story  all  in  one.       It  is   certainly  j 

anything  but  a  novel.  One  of  the  giants  of  English 
letters,  doing  many  things  and  exhibiting  a  sardonic 
personality  that  seems  to  peer  through  all  his  work, 
Swift's  contribution  to  the  coming  Novel  was  above 
all  the  use  of  a  certain  grave,  realistic  manner  of 
treating  the  impossible^:  a  service,  however,  shared 
with  Defoe.  He  gives  us  in  a  matter-of-fact  chron- 
icle style  the  marvelous  happenings   of  Gulliver  in 


ss     mastp:rs  of  the  English  novel 

Lilliputian  land  or  in  that  of  the  Brobdin^'nugians. 
He  and  Defoe  are  to  be  regarded  as  pioneers  who 
suggested  to  the  literary  world,  just  before  the 
Novel's  advent,  that  the  attraction  of  a  new  form 
and  a  new  method,  the  exploitation  of  the  truth  that, 
"  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man,"  could  not 
(and  should  not)  kill  the  love  of  romance,  for  the 
good  and  sufficient  reason  that  romance  meant  im- 
agination, illusion,  charm,  poetry.  And  in  due  sea- 
son, after  the  long  innings  enjoyed  by  realism  with 
its  triumphs  of  analysis  and  superfaithful  transcrip- 
tions of  the  average  life  of  man,  we  shall  behold  the 
change  of  mood  which  welcomes  back  the  older  appeal 
of  fiction. 

IV 

It  was  the  enlargement  of  this  sense  of  romance 
which  Oliver  Goldsmith  gave  his  time  in  that  master- 
j^iece  in  small,  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  " :  his  special 
contribution  to  the  plastic  variations  connected  with 
the  growing  pains  of  the  Novel.  Whether  regarded 
as  poet,  essayist,  dramatist  or  story-maker.  Dr.  Gold- 
smith is  one  of  the  best-loved  figures  of  English  let- 
ters, as  Swift  is  one  of  the  most  terrible.  And  these 
lovable  qualities  are  nowhere  more  conspicuous  than 
in  the  idyllic  sketch  of  the  country  clergyman  and 
his  family.  Romance  it  deserves  to  be  called,  because 
of  the  delicate  idealization  in  the  setting  and  in  the 
portrayal  of  the  Vicar  himself — a  man  who  not  only 


DEVELOPMENTS  89 

preached  God's  love,  "  but  first  he  followed  it  him- 
self." And  yet  the  book — which,  by  the  bye,  was 
published  in  1766  just  as  the  last  parts  of  "  Tristram 
Shandy  "  were  appearing  in  print — offers  a  good 
example  of  the  way  in  which  the  more  romantic  de- 
piction of  life,  in  the  hands  of  a  master,  inevitably 
blends  with  realistic  details,  even  with  a  winning 
truthfulness  of  effect.  Some  of  the  romantic  charm 
of  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  we  must  remember, 
inheres  in  its  sympathetic  reproduction  of  vanished 
manners,  etiquette  and  social  grace ;  a  sweet  old- 
time  grace,  a  fragrance  out  of  the  past,  emanates 
from  the  memory  of  it  if  read  half  a  lifetime  ago. 
An  elder  age  is  rehabilitated  for  us  by  its  pages, 
even  as  it  is  by  the  canvases  of  Romney  and  Sir 
Joshua.  And  with  this  more  obvious  romanticism 
goes  the  deeper  romanticism  that  comes  from  the 
interpretation  of  humanity,  which  assumes  it  to  be 
kindly  and  gentle  and  noble  in  the  main.  Life,  made 
up  of  good  and  evil  as  it  is,  is,  nevertheless,  seen 
through  this  affectionate  time-haze,  worth  the  living. 
Whatever  their  individual  traits,  an  air  of  country 
peace  and  innocence  hovers  over  the  Primrose  house- 
hold: the  father  and  mother,  the  girls,  Olivia  and 
Sophia,  and  the  two  sons,  George  and  Moses,  they 
all  seem  equally  generous,  credulous  and  good.  We 
feel  that  the  author  is  living  up  to  an  announcement 
in  the  opening  chapter  which  of  itself  is  a  sort  of 
promise  of  the  idealized  treatment  of  poor  human 


90      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

nature.  But  into  tills  pretty  and  perfect  scene  of 
domestic  felicity  come  trouble  and  disgrace:  the  ser- 
pent creeps  into  the  luisullied  nest,  the  villain,  Thorn- 
hill,  ruins  Olivia,  their  house  burns,  and  the  soft- 
hearted, honorable  father  is  haled  to  prison.  There 
is  no  blinking  the  darker  side  of  mortal  experience. 
And  the  prison  scenes,  with  their  noble  teaching  with 
regard  to  penal  punishment,  showing  Goldsmith  far 
in  advance  of  his  age,  add  still  further  to  the  shad- 
ows. Yet  the  idealization  is  there,  like  an  atmos- 
phere, and  through  it  all,  shining  and  serene,  is  Dr. 
Primrose  to  draw  the  eye  to  the  eternal  good.  We 
smile  mayhap  at  his  simplicity  but  note  at  the  same 
time  that  his  psychology  is  sound:  the  influence  of 
his  sermonizing  upon  the  jailbirds  is  true  to  ex- 
perience often  since  tested.  Nor  are  satiric  side- 
strokes  in  the  realistic  vein  wanting — as  in  the  draw- 
ing of  such  a  high  lady  of  quality  as  Miss  Carolina 
Wilhelmina  Amelia  Skeggs — ^the  very  name  sending 
our  thoughts  forward  to  Thackeray.  In  the  final 
analysis  it  will  be  found  that  what  makes  the  work 
a  romance  is  its  power  to  quicken  the  sense  of  the 
attraction,  the  beauty  of  simple  goodness  through 
the  portrait  of  a  noble  man  whose  environment  is 
such  as  best  to  bring  out  his  qualities.  Dr.  Prim- 
rose is  humanity,  if  not  actual,  potential:  he  can  be, 
if  he  never  was.  A  helpful  comparison  might  be 
instituted  between  Goldsmith's  country  clergyman 
and  Balzac's  country  doctor  in  the  novel  of  that 


SMOLLETT,  STERNE  AND  OTHERS       91 

name ;  another  notable  attempt  at  the  idealization  of 
a  typical  man  of  one  of  the  professions.  It  would 
bring  out  the  difference  between  the  late  eighteenth 
and  the  middle  nineteenth  centuries,  as  well  as  that 
between  a  great  novelist,  Balzac,  and  a  great  English 
writer,  Goldsmith,  who  yet  is  not  a  novelist  at  all. 
It  should  detract  no  whit  from  one's  delight  in  such 
a  work  as  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  to  acknowledge 
that  its  aim  is  not  to  depict  society  as  it  then  ex- 
isted, but  to  give  a  pleasurable  abstract  of  human 
nature  for  the  purpose  of  reconciling  us  through  art 
with  life,  when  lived  so  sanely,  simply  and  sweetly 
as  by  Primrose  of  gentle  memory.  Seldom  has  the 
divine  quality  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins  been  por- 
trayed with  more  salutary  effect  than  in  the  scene 
where  the  erring  and  errant  Olivia  is  taken  back  to  the 
heart  of  her  father — just  as  the  hard-headed  landlady 
would  drive  her  forth  with  the  words :  "  '  Out  I  say ! 
Pack  out  this  moment !  tramp,  thou  impudent  strum- 
pet, or  I'll  give  thee  a  mark  that  won't  be  better  for 
this  three  months.  What !  you  trumpery,  to  come 
and  take  up  an  honest  house  without  cross  or  coin  to 
bless  yourself  with !     Come  along,  I  say.'  " 

"  I  flew  to  her  rescue  while  the  woman  was  dragging 
her  along  by  her  hair,  and  I  caught  the  dear  forloi'n 
wretch  in  my  arms.  '  Welcome,  anyway  welcome, 
my  dearest  lost  one,  my  treasure,  to  your  poor  old 
father's  bosom.  Though  the  vicious  forsake  thee, 
there  is  yet  one  in  the  world  who  will  never  forsake 


9i      MASTERS  OF  THK  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

thcc;  tlioufi-h  thou  luitlst  ten  thousand  crimes  to 
answer  for,  he  will  forget  thcni  .all ! '  " 

Set  beside  this  father  the  fathers  of  Clarissa  and 
Sophia  Western,  and  you  have  the  difference  between 
the  romance  and  realism  that  express  opposite  moods ; 
the  mood  that  shows  the  average  and  the  mood  that 
shows  the  best.  For  portraiture,  then,  rather  than 
plot,  for  felicity  of  manner  and  sweetness  of  interpre- 
tation we  praise  such  a  work; — qualities  no  less 
precious  though  not  so  distinctively  appertaining 
to  the  Novel. 

It  may  be  added,  for  a  minor  point,  that  the  Novel 
type  as  already  developed  had  assumed  a  conventional 
length  which  would  preclude  "  The  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field "  from  its  category,  making  it  a  sketch  or  nov- 
elette. The  fiction-makers  rapidly  came  to  realize 
that  for  their  particular  purpose — to  portray  a  com- 
plicated piece  of  contemporary  life — more  leisurely 
movement  and  hence  greater  space  are  necessary  to 
the  best  result.  To-day  any  fiction  under  fifty  thou- 
sand words  would  hardly  be  called  a  novel  in  the 
proper  sense, — except  in  publishers'  advertisements. 
Goldsmith's  story  docs  not  exceed  such  limits. 

Therefore,  although  we  may  like  it  all  the  more 
because  it  is  a  romantic  sketch  rather  than  a  novel 
proper,  we  must  grant  that  its  share  in  the  eighteenth 
century  shaping  of  the  form  is  but  ancillary.  The 
fact  that  the  book  upon  its  appearance  awakened 
no  such  interest  as  waited  upon  the  fiction  of  Rich- 


DEVELOPMENTS  93 

ardson  or  Fielding  a  few  years  before,  may  be  taken 
to  mean  that  the  taste  was  still  towards  the  more 
photographic  portrayals  of  average  contemporary 
humanity.  Several  editions,  to  be  sure,  were  issued 
the  year  of  its  publication,  but  without  much  finan- 
cial success,  and  contemporary  criticism  found  little 
remarkable  in  this  permanent  contribution  to  English 
literature.  Later,  it  was  beloved  both  of  the  elect 
and  the  general.  Goethe's  testimony  to  the  strong 
and  wholesome  effect  of  the  book  upon  him  in  his 
formative  period,  is  remembered.  Dear  old  Dr. 
Johnson  too  believed  in  the  story,  for,  summoned  to 
Goldsmith's  lodging  by  his  friend's  piteous  appeal 
for  help,  he  sends  a  guinea  in  advance  and  on  arrival 
there,  finds  his  colleague  in  high  cholcr  because,  for- 
sooth, his  landlady  has  arrested  him  for  his  rent: 
whereupon  Goldsmith  (who  had  already  expended 
part  of  the  guinea  in  a  bottle  of  Madeira)  displays  a 
manuscript,—"  a  novel  ready  for  the  press,"  as  we 
read  in  Boswell ;  and  Johnson — "  I  looked  into  it  and 
saw  its  merit,"  says  he — goes  out  and  sells  it  for  sixty 
pounds,  whereupon  Goldsmith  paid  off  his  obligation, 
and  with  his  mercurial  Irish  nature  had  a  happy  even- 
ing, no  doubt,  with  his  chosen  cronies  !  It  is  a  sordid, 
humorous-tragic  Grub  Street  beginning  for  one  of 
the  little  immortals  of  letters — so  many  of  which, 
alack !  have  a  similar  birth. 

Certain  other  authors  less  distinguished  than  these, 
produced  fiction  of  various  kinds  which  also  had  some 


9t       MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

influence  in  the  development,  and  further  illustrate 
the  tendency  of  the  Novel  to  become  a  pliable  medium 
for  literary  expression;  a  sort  of  net  wherein  divers 
fish  might  be  caught.  Dr.  Johnson,  essayist,  critic, 
coffee-house  dictator,  published  the  same  year  that 
Sterne's  "  Tristram  Shandy  "  began  to  appear,  his 
"  Rasselas,  Prince  of  Abyssinia  " ;  a  stately  elegiac 
on  the  vanity  of  human  pleasures,  in  which  the  Prince 
leaves  his  idyllic  home  and  goes  into  the  world  to  test 
its  shams,  only  to  return  to  his  kingdom  with  the 
sad  knowledge  that  it  is  the  better  part  of  wisdom 
in  this  vale  of  tears  to  prepare  for  heaven.  Of 
course  this  is  fiction  only  in  seeming  and  by  courtesy, 
almost  as  far  removed  from  the  Novel  as  the  same 
author's  mammoth  dictionary  or  Lives  of  the  Poets. 
It  has  Richardson's  method  of  moralizing,  while  lack- 
ing that  writer's  power  of  studying  humanity  in  its 
social  relations.  The  sturdy  genius  of  Dr.  Johnson 
lay  in  quite  other  directions. 

Richardson's  sentimentality,  too,  was  carried  on 
by  MacKenzie  in  his  *'  Man  of  Feeling  "  already  men- 
tioned as  the  favorite  tear-begetter  of  its  time,  the 
novel  which  made  the  most  prolonged  attack  upon 
the  lachrymosal  gland.  But  it  is  only  fair  to  this 
author  to  add  that  there  was  a  welcome  note  of  phi- 
lanthropy in  his  story — in  spite  of  its  mawkishness; 
his  appeal  for  the  under  dog  in  great  cities  is  a  fore- 
cast of  the  humanitarianism  to  become  rampant  in 
later  fiction. 


SMOLLETT,  STERNE  AND  OTHERS        95 

Again,  the  seriousness  which  has  always,  in  one 
guise  or  the  other,  underlain  English  fiction,  soon 
crystalized  in  the  contemporary  eighteenth  century 
novelists'  into  an  attempt  to  preach  this  or  that  by 
propaganda  in  story-form.  William  Godwin,  whose 
relations  as  father-in-law  to  Shelley  gives  him  a  not 
altogether  agreeable  place  in  our  memory,  was  a 
leader  in  this  tendency  with  several  fictions,  the  best 
known  and  most  readable  being  "  Caleb  Williams  " : 
radical  ideas,  social,  political  and  religious,  were 
mooted  by  half  a  dozen  earnest-souled  authors  whose 
works  are  now  regarded  as  links  in  the  chain  of  de- 
velopment— missing  links  for  most  readers  of  fiction, 
since  their  literary  quality  is  small.  In  later  days, 
this  kind  of  production  was  to  be  called  purpose 
fiction  and  condemned  or  applauded  according  to 
individual  taste  and  the  esthetic  and  vital  value  of 
the  book.  When  the  moralizing  overpowered  all  else, 
we  get  a  book  like  that  friend  of  childhood,  "  Sanford 
and  Merton,"  which  Thomas  Day  perpetrated  in  the 
year  of  grace  1783.  Few  properly  reared  boys  of 
a  generation  ago  escaped  this  literary  indiscretion: 
:ts  Sunday  School  solemnity,  its  distribution  of  life's 
prizes  according  to  the  strictest  moral  tests,  had  a 
sort  of  bogey  fascination ;  it  was  much  in  vogue  long 
after  Day's  time,  indeed  down  to  within  our  own 
memories.  Perhaps  it  is  still  read  and  relished  in 
innocent  corners  of  the  earth.  In  any  case  it  is  one 
of  the  outcomes  of  the  movement  just  touched  upon. 


96      MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

At  present,  being  more  cnnuyc  in  our  tastes  for 
fiction  than  were  our  forefathers,  and  the  pretence 
of  piety  being  less  a  convention,  we  incline  to  insist 
more  firmly  that  the  pill  at  least  be  sugar-coated, — if 
indeed  we  submit  to  physic  at  all. 

There  was  also  a  tendency  during  tlie  second  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century — very  likely  only  half 
serious  and  hardly  more  than  a  literary  fad — toward 
the  romance  of  mystery  and  horror.  Horace  Wal- 
pole,  the  last  man  on  earth  from  whom  one  would 
expect  the  romantic  and  sentimental,  produced  in 
his  "Castle  of  Otranto  "  such  a  book;  and  Mrs. 
RadclifFe's  "  The  Mystery  of  Udolpho  "  (standing 
for  numerous  others)  manipulated  the  stage  machi- 
nery of  this  pseudo-romantic  revival  and  reaction ; 
moonlit  castles,  medieval  accessories,  weird  sounds 
and  lights  at  the  dread  midnight  hour, — ^an  attack 
upon  the  reader's  nerves  rather  than  his  sensibilities, 
much  the  sort  of  paraphernalia  employed  with  a 
more  spiritual  purpose  and  effect  in  our  own  day 
by  the  dramatist,  Maeterlinck.  Beckford's  "  Va- 
thek  "  and  Lewis'  "  The  INIonk  "  are  variations  upon 
this  theme,  which  for  a  while  was  very  popular  and 
is  decidedly  to  be  seen  in  the  work  of  the  first  novelist 
upon  American  soil,  Charles  Brockdcn  Brown,  whose 
somber  "  Wieland,"  read  with  the  Radcliff c  school 
in  mind,  will  reveal  its  probable  parentage.  We 
have  seen  how  the  movement  was  happily  satirized  by 
its  natural  enemy,  Jane  Austen.     Few  more  enjoy- 


DEVELOPMENTS  97 

able  things  can  be  quoted  than  this  conversation  from 
"  Northanger  Abbey  "  between  two  typical  young 
ladies  of  the  time: — 

"  '  But,  my  dearest  Catherine,  what  have  you  been 
doing  with  yourself  all  this  morning?  Have  you  gone 
on  with  Udolpho  ?  ' 

"  '  Yes,  I  have  been  reading  it  ever  since  I  woke ; 
and  I  am  got  to  the  black  veil.' 

"  '  Are  you,  indeed  ?  How  delightful !  Oh !  I 
would  not  tell  you  what  is  behind  the  black  veil  for 
the  world!    Are  you  not  wild  to  know? ' 

"  '  Oh  !  yes,  quite ;  what  can  it  be  ?  But  do  not  tell 
me ;  I  would  not  be  told  upon  any  account.  I  know  it 
must  be  a  skeleton  ;  I  am  sure  it  is  Laurentina's  skele- 
ton. Oh !  I  am  delighted  with  the  book !  I  should 
like  to  spend  my  whole  life  in  reading  it,  I  assure 
you ;  if  it  had  not  been  to  meet  you,  I  would  not  have 
come  away  from  it  for  all  the  world.' 

" '  Dear  creature !  how  much  I  am  obliged  to 
you ;  and  when  you  have  finished  Udolpho,  we  will 
read  the  Italian  together;  and  I  have  made  out 
a  Hst  of  ten  or  twelve  more  of  the  same  kind  for 
you.' 

"  '  Have  you,  indeed !  How  glad  I  am !  What  are 
they  all?' 

*' '  I  will  read  you  their  names  directly ;  here  they 
are  in  my  pocket-book.  "  Castle  of  Wolfenbach," 
"  Clermont,"  "  Mysterious  Warnings,"  "  Necro- 
mancer   of    the    Black    Forest,"    "Midnight    Bell," 


j;s     .MAsri:us  oi'  tiil:  English  novel 

"■  Urplmn  of  tlie  Rhine/'  and  "  Horrid  Mysteries." 
Those  will  hist  us  sonic  time.' 

"'  Yes;  ])retty  well;  hut  are  they  all  liorrid?  Are 
you  sure  they  are  uU  horrid.''  ' 

"  '  Yes,  quite  sure;  for  a  particular  friend  of  mine, 
a  ]\Iiss  Andrews,  a  sweet  girl,  one  of  the  sweetest 
creatures  in  the  world,  has  read  every  one  of  them.'  " 

After  all,  human  nature  is  constant,  independent 
of  time;  and  fashions  social,  mental,  literary,  return 
like  fashions  in  feminine  headgear  !  Two  club  women 
were  coming  from  a  city  play  house  after  hearing 
a  particularly  lugubrious  drama  of  Ibsen's,  and  one 
was  overheard  exclaiming  to  the  other :  "  O  isn't 
Ibsen  just  lovely!  He  does  so  take  the  hope  out 
of  life !  " 

Yet  the  tendency  of  eighteenth  century  fiction, 
with  its  handling  of  the  bizarre  and  sensational,  its 
use  of  occult  effects  of  the  Past  and  Present,  was 
but  an  eddy  in  a  current  which  was  setting  strong 
and  steadily  toward  the  realistic  portrayal  of  con- 
temporary society. 

One  other  tendency,  expressive  of  a  lighter  mood, 
an  attempt  to  represent  society  a  la  mode,  is  also 
to  be  noted  during  this  half  century  so  crowded  with 
interesting  manifestations  of  a  new  spirit;  and  they 
who  wrote  it  were  mostly  women.  It  Is  a  remarkable 
fact  that  for  the  fifty  years  between  Sterne  and 
Scott,  the  leading  novelists  were  of  that  sex,  four  of 
whom   at   least,   Burney,   Radcliffe,   Edgcworth    and 


SMOLLETT,  STERNE  AND  OTHERS        99 

Austen,  were  of  importance.  Of  this  group  the  Hvely 
Fanny  Burney  is  the  prophet ;  she  is  the  first  woman 
novelist  of  rank.  Her  "  Evelina,"  with  its  somewhat 
starched  gentility  and  simpering  sensibility,  was  once 
a  book  to  conjure  with;  it  fluttered  the  literary  dove- 
cotes in  a  way  not  so  easy  to  comprehend  to-day. 
Yet  Dr.  Johnson  loved  his  "  little  Burney "  and 
greatly  admired  her  work,  and  there  are  entertaining 
and  without  question  accurate  pictures  of  the  fash- 
ionable London  at  the  time  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion drawn  by  an  observer  of  the  inner  circle,  in  her 
*'  Evelina  "  and  "  Cecilia  " ;  one  treasures  them  for 
their  fresh  spirit  and  lively  humor,  nor  looks  in  them 
for  the  more  serious  elements  of  good  fiction.  She 
contributes,  modestly,  to  that  fiction  to  which  we  go 
for  human  documents.  No  one  who  has  been  ad- 
mitted to  the  privileges  of  Miss  Burney's  Diary  can 
fail  to  feel  that  a  woman  who  commands  such  idiom 
is  easily  an  adept  In  the  realistic  dialogue  of  the 
novel.  Here,  even  more  than  in  her  own  novels  or 
those  of  Richardson  and  Fielding,  we  hear  the  exact 
syllable  and  Intonation  of  contemporary  speech. 
"  Mr.  Cholmondeley  Is  a  clergyman,"  she  writes, 
"  nothing  shining  either  In  person  or  manners  but 
rather  somewhat  grim  in  the  first  and  glum  In  the 
last."  And  again :  "  Our  confab  was  interrupted 
by  the  entrance  of  Mr.  King,"  or  yet  again :  "  The 
joke  is,  the  people  speak  as  if  they  were  afraid  of 
me,   Instead   of  my   being   afraid   of  them. 


100     MASTKHS  OI'    THE  ENGLISH    NOVEL 

Next  morning,  Mrs.  Tliralc  asked  me  if  I  did  not 
want  to  see  Mrs.  Montagu.''  I  truly  said  I  sliould 
be  the  most  insensible  of  animals  not  to  like  to  see 
our  sex's  glory."  It  is  hard  to  realize  that  this  was 
penned  in  the  neighborhood  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  so  modern  is  its  sound. 

A  great  writer,  with  a  wider  scope  and  a  more 
incisive  satire,  is  ^Nlaria  Edgeworth,  whose  books 
take  us  over  into  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
lighter,  more  frivolous  aspects  of  English  high  so- 
ciety are  admirably  portrayed  in  her  "  Belinda " 
and  eight  or  ten  other  tales:  and  she  makes  a  still 
stronger  claim  to  permanent  remembrance  in  such 
studies  of  Irish  types,  whether  in  England  or  on 
the  native  soil,  as  "  The  Absentee "  and  "  Castle 
Rackrent."  I  venture  the  statement  that  even  the 
jaded  novel  reader  of  to-day  will  find  on  a  perusal 
of  either  of  these  capital  stories  that  Miss  Edge- 
worth  makes  literature,  and  that  a  pleasure  not  a 
penance  is  in  store.  She  first  in  English  fiction  ex- 
ploited the  better-class  Irishman  at  home  and  her 
scenes  have  historic  value.  Some  years  later,  Susan 
Ferrier,  who  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  Scott,  wrote 
under  the  stimulus  of  Maria  Edgeworth's  example 
a  series  of  clever  studies  of  Scotch  life,  dashed  with 
decided  humor  and  done  with  true  observation. 

These  women,  with  their  quick  eye  and  facile  abil- 
ity to  report  what  they  saw,  and  also  their  ease  of 
manner  which  of  itself  seems  like  a  social  gift,  were 


DEVELOPMENTS  101 

but  the  prelude  to  the  work  so  varied,  gifted  and 
vastly  influential,  which  the  sex  was  to  do  in  the 
modern  Novel;  so  that,  at  present,  in  an  open  field 
and  no  favors  given,  they  are  honorable  rivals  of 
men,  securing  their  full  share  of  public  favor.  And 
the  EngHsh  Novel,  written  by  so  many  tentatively 
during  these  fifty  years  when  the  form  was  a-shaping, 
culminates  at  the  turn  of  the  century  in  two  con- 
trasted authors  compared  with  whom  all  that  went 
before  seems  but  preparatory;  one  a  man,  the  other 
a  woman,  who  together  express  and  illustrate  most 
conveniently  for  this  study  the  main  movements  of 
modern  fiction, — romance  and  realism, — the  instinct 
for  truth  and  the  instinct  for  beauty ;  not  necessarily 
an  antagonism,  as  we  shall  have  ample  occasion  to 
see,  since  truth,  rightly  defined,  is  only  "  beauty 
seen  from  another  side."  It  hardly  needs  to  add  that 
these  two  novelists  are  Jane  Austen  and  Walter 
Scott. 


CHAPTER  V 

REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN 

It  has  been  said  tlmt  INIiss  Austen  came  nearer 
to  showing  life  as  it  is, — the  life  she  knew  and 
chose  to  depict, — than  any  other  novelist  of  Eng- 
lish race.  In  other  words,  she  is  a  princess  among 
the  truth-tellers.  Whether  or  not  this  claim  can 
be  substantiated,  it  is  sure  that,  writing  practically 
half  a  century  after  Richardson  and  Fielding,  she 
far  surpassed  those  pioneers  in  the  exquisite  and  easy 
verisimilitude  of  her  art.  Nay,  we  can  go  further 
and  say  that  nobody  has  reproduced  life  with  a 
more  faithful  accuracy,  that  yet  was  not  photography 
because  it  gave  the  pleasure  proper  to  art,  than  this 
same  Jane  Austen,  spinster,  well-born  and  well-bred: 
in  her  own  phrase,  an  "  elegant  female  "  of  the  Eng- 
lish past.  Scott's  famous  remark  can  not  be  too 
often  quoted :  "  That  young  lady  had  a  talent  for 
describing  the  movements  and  feelings  of  characters 
of  ordinary  life,  which  is  to  me  the  most  wonderful 
I  ever  met  with." 

If  you  look  on  the  map  at  the  small  Southern 
county  of  Hampshire,  you  will  see  that  the  town 
of  Steventon   lies  hard   by   Sclborne,  another  name 

102 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  103 

which  the  naturalist  White  has  made  pleasant  to  the 
ear.  Throughout  her  forty-two  years  of  life — she 
was  born  the  year  of  American  revolution  and  died 
shortly  after  Scott  had  begun  his  Waverley  series — 
she  was  a  country-woman  in  the  best  sense :  a  clergy- 
man's daughter  identified  with  her  neighborhood,  dig- 
nified and  private  in  her  manner  of  existence,  her 
one  sensational  outing  being  a  four  years'  residence 
in  the  fashionable  watering-place  of  Bath,  where 
Beau  Nash  once  reigned  supreme  and  in  our  day, 
Beaucaire  has  been  made  to  rebuke  Lady  Mary  Car- 
lisle for  her  cold  patrician  pride.  Quiet  she  lived  and 
died,  nor  was  she  reckoned  great  in  letters  by  her 
contemporaries.  She  wrote  on  her  lap  with  others 
in  the  room,  refused  to  take  herself  seriously  and  in 
no  respect  was  like  the  authoress  who  is  kodaked  at 
the  writing-desk  and  chronicled  in  her  movements  by 
land  and  sea.  She  was  not  the  least  bit  "  literary." 
Fanny  Burney,  who  had  talent  to  Jane  Austen's 
genius,  was  in  a  blaze  of  social  recognition,  a  petted 
darling  of  the  town,  where  the  other  walked  in  rural 
ways  and  unnoted  of  the  world,  wrote  novels  that 
were  to  make  literary  history.  Such  are  the  revenges 
of  the  whirligig.  Time. 

Austen's  indestructible  reputation  is  founded  on 
half  a  dozen  pieces  of  fiction :  the  best,  and  best 
known,  "  Sense  and  Sensibility "  and  "  Pride  and 
Prejudice,"  although  "  Mansfield  Park,"  "  Emma," 
"  Northanger  Abbey  "  and  "  Persuasion  "  (in  order 


lot     MASTi: us  OF  TIIK  KNGLISII    NOVEL 

of  pul)lioation  but  uol  of  actual  coinposition)  are 
all  of  importance  to  the  understanding  and  enjoy- 
ment of  her,  and  her  evenness  of  performanee,  on  the 
wliole,  is  remarkable.  The  earlier  three  of  these 
books  were  written  by  Miss  Austen  when  a  young 
woman  in  thf  twenties,  Ijut  pubHslied  uuieh  later,  and 
were  anon^^mous — an  indication  of  her  tendency  to 
take  her  authorshij)  as  an  aside.  Two  of  them  ap- 
peared posthumously.  Curiously,  "  Northanger 
Abbey,"  that  capital  hit  at  the  Radcliffe  romanticism, 
and  first  written  of  her  stories,  was  disposed  of  to  a 
publisher  when  the  writer  was  but  three  and  twenty, 
yet  was  not  printed  until  she  had  passed  away  nearly 
twenty  years  later, — a  sufficient  proof  of  her  unpopu- 
larity from  the  mercantile  point  of  view. 

Here  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  literature :  this 
gentlewoman  dabbling  in  a  seemingly  amateur  fashion 
in  letters,  turns  out  to  be  the  ablest  novelist  of  her 
sex  and  race,  one  of  the  very  few  great  craftsmen, 
one  may  say,  since  art  is  no  respector  of  sex.  Jane 
Austen  is  the  best  example  in  the  w'hole  range  of 
English  literature  of  the  wisdom  of  knowing  your 
limitations  and  cultivating  your  own  special  plot  of 
ground.  She  offers  a  permanent  rebuke  to  those 
who  (because  of  youth  or  a  failure  to  grasp  the 
meaning  of  life)  fancy  that  the  only  thing  worth 
while  lies  on  the  other  side  of  the  Pyrenees ;  when 
all  the  while  at  one's  own  back-door  blooms  the 
miracle.      She  had  a  clear-ej-ed  comprehension  of  her 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  105 

own  restrictions ;  and  possessed  that  power  of  self- 
criticism  which  some  truly  great  authors  lack.  She 
has  herself  given  us  the  aptest  comment  ever  made 
on  her  books :  speaking  of  the  "  little  bit  of  ivory  two 
inches  wide  on  which  she  worked  with  a  brush  so 
fine  as  to  produce  little  effect  after  much  labor  " ; — 
a  judgment  hardly  fair  as  to  the  interest  she  arouses, 
but  nevertheless  absolutely  descriptive  of  the  plus 
and  minus  of  her  gift. 

Miss  Austen  knew  the  genteel  life  of  the  upper 
middle  class  Hampshire  folk,  "  the  Squirearchy  and 
the  upper  professional  class,"  as  Professor  Saints- 
bury  expresses  it,  down  to  the  ground — knew  it  as 
a  sympathetic  onlooker  slightly  detached  (she  never 
married),  yet  not  coldly  aloof  but  a  part  of  it  as 
devoted  sister  and  maiden  aunt,  and  friend-in-general 
to  the  community.  She  could  do  two  things  which 
John  Ruskin  so  often  lauded  as  both  rare  and  diffi- 
cult :  see  straight  and  then  report  accurately ;  a 
literary  Pre-Raphaelite,  be  it  noted,  before  the  term 
was  coined.  It  not  only  came  natural  to  her  to 
tell  the  truth  about  average  humanity  as  she  saw 
it ;  she  could  not  be  deflected  from  her  calling.  Win- 
ning no  general  recognition  during  her  life-time,  she 
was  not  subjected  to  the  temptations  of  the  popular 
novelist;  but  she  had  her  chance  to  go  wrong,  for 
it  is  recorded  how  that  the  Librarian  to  Kincs:  Gcorore 
the  Third,  an  absurd  creature  yclept  Clark,  informed 
the  authoress  that  his  Highness  admired  lier  work. , 


10(1     MASTKRS  ()!•    TIIK   F-XGLTSII  NOVEL 

and  su^oostcd  that  in  view  of  tlic  fact  that  Prince 
Leonard  was  to  marry  the  Princess  Charlotte,  Miss 
Austen  sliould  indite  "  An  historical  romance  illustra- 
tive of  tlic  auf^ust  house  of  Coburg"  To  which, 
^liss  Jane,  with  a  humor  and  prood-scnse  (]uitc  in 
character  (and,  it  may  be  feared,  not  appreciated 
by  the  recipient)  :  "  I  could  not  sit  down  to  write  a 
serious  romance  under  any  other  motive  than  amuse- 
ment to  save  my  life ;  and  if  it  were  indispensable  for 
me  to  keep  it  up,  and  never  relax  into  laughter  at 
myself  and  other  people,  I  am  sure  I  should  be  hung 
before  I  had  finished  the  first  chapter.  No,  I  must 
keep  to  my  own  style  and  go  on  in  my  own  way." 

There  is  scarce  a  clearer  proof  of  genius  than  this 
ability  to  strike  out  a  path  and  keep  to  it :  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  weak  wobbling  so  often  shown  in 
the  desire  to  follow  literary  fashion  or  be  complaisant 
before  the  suggestion  of  the  merchants  of  letters. 

All  her  novels  are  prophetic  of  what  was  long  to 
rule,  in  their  slight  framework  of  fable ;  the  handling 
of  the  scenes  by  the  way,  the  characterization,  the 
natural  dialogue,  the  vraisemblance  of  setting,  tlie 
witty  irony  of  observation,  these  are  the  elements  of 
interest.  Jane  Austen's  plots  are  mere  tempests 
in  tea-pots;  yet  she  does  not  go  to  the  extreme  of 
the  plotless  fiction  of  the  present.  She  has  a  story 
to  tell,  as  Trollope  would  say,  and  knows  how  to 
tell  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  subtract  from  it  every  ounce 
of  value.     There  is  a  clear  kernel  of  idea  in  each 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  107 

and  every  one  of  her  tales.  Thus,  In  "  Sense  and 
Sensibility,"  we  meet  two  sisters  who  stand  for  the 
characteristics  contrasted  In  the  title,  and  in  the 
fortunes  of  Marlane,  whose  flighty  romanticism  is 
cured  so  that  she  makes  a  sensible  marriage  after 
learning  the  villainy  of  her  earlier  lover  and  finding 
that  foolish  sentlmentalism  may  well  give  way  to  the 
informing  experiences  of  life, — the  thesis,  satirically 
conveyed  though  with  more  subtlety  than  In  the 
earlier  "  Northanger  Abbey,"  proclaims  the  folly  of 
young-girl  sentimentality  and  hysteria.  In  "  Pride 
and  Prejudice,"  ranked  by  many  as  her  masterpiece, 
Darcy,  with  his  foolish  hauteur,  his  self-consciousness 
of  superior  birth.  Is  temporarily  blind  to  the  worth 
of  Elizabeth,  who,  on  her  part,  does  not  see  the  good 
In  him  through  her  sensitiveness  to  his  patronizing 
attitude ;  as  the  course  of  development  brings  them 
together  In  a  happy  union,  the  lesson  of  toleration, 
of  mutual  comprehension,  sinks  into  the  mind.  The 
reader  realizes  the  pettiness  of  the  worldly  wisdom 
which  blocks  the  way  of  joy.  As  we  have  said, 
"  Northanger  Abbey  "  speaks  a  wise  word  against  the 
abuse  of  emotionalism;  it  tells  of  the  experiences  of 
a  flighty  Miss,  bred  on  the  "  Mysteries  of  Udolpho  " 
style  of  literature,  during  a  visit  to  a  country  house 
where  she  imagined  all  the  medieval  romanticism 
incident  to  that  school  of  fiction, — aided  and  abetted 
by  such  innocuous  helps  as  a  storm  without  and  a 
lonesome     chamber     within     doors.     Of     the     later 


108     MASTKHS  OF  TIIK  KXGLISII   NOVEL 

stories,  "  Mansfii'ld  Park  "  asks  us  to  remember  what 
it  is  to  be  poor  and  reared  among  rich  rehitions; 
"Emma"  (hsjilays  a  reverse  misery:  the  ricli  young 
woman  wliose  character  is  exposed  to  the  a(hihitions 
and  sliams  incitk'iit  u])on  her  jxjsilion;  while  in  "  Per- 
suasion." there  is  yet  another  idea  expressed  by  and 
through  another  type  of  girl;  she  who  has  fallen  into 
the  habit  of  allowing  herself  to  be  over-ridden  and 
used  by  friends  and  family. — There  is  something  all 
but  Shaksperian  in  that  story's  illustration  of  "  the 
uncertainty  of  all  human  events  and  calculations," 
as  she  herself  expresses  it:  Anne  Eliot's  radical  vic- 
tory is  a  moral  triumph  j^et  a  warning  withal.  And 
in  each  book,  the  lesson  has  been  conveyed  with 
the  unobtrusive  indirection  of  fine  art;  the  story  is 
ever  first,  w^e  are  getting  fiction  not  lectures.  These 
novels  adorn  truth ;  they  show  what  literature  can 
effect  by  the  method  of  much-in-little. 

There  is  nothing  sensational  in  incident  or  com- 
plication :  as  with  Richardson,  an  elopement  is  the 
highest  stretch  of  external  excitement  Miss  Austen 
vouchsafes.  Yet  all  is  drawn  so  beautifully  to  scale, 
as  in  such  a  scene  as  that  of  the  quarrel  and  estrange- 
ment of  Elizabeth  and  Darcj'  in  "  Pride  and  Preju- 
dice," that  the  effect  is  greater  than  in  the  case  of 
many  a  misused  opportunity  where  the  events  are 
earth-shaking  in  import.  The  situation  means  so 
much  to  the  participants,  that  the  reader  becomes 
sympatheticallj'  involved.     After  all,  importance  in 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  109 

fiction  is  exactly  like  importance  in  life;  important 
to  whom?  the  philosopher  asks.  The  relativity  of 
things  human  is  a  wholesome  theory  for  the  artist 
to  bear  in  mind.  Even  as  the  most  terrific  cataclysm 
on  this  third  planet  from  the  sun  in  a  minor  system, 
makes  not  a  ripple  upon  Mars,  so  the  most  infini- 
tesimal occurrence  in  eighteenth  century  Hampshire 
may  seem  of  account, — if  only  a  master  draws  the 
picture. 

Not  alone  by  making  her  characters  thoroughly 
alive  and  interesting  does  Miss  Austen  effect  this 
result :  but  by  her  way  of  telling  the  tale  as  well ; 
by  a  preponderance  of  dialogue  along  with  clear 
portraiture  she  actually  gets  an  effect  that  is  dra- 
matic. Scenes  from  her  books  arc  staged  even  to 
the  present  day.  She  found  this  manner  of  dia- 
logue with  comparative  parsimony  of  description  and 
narration,  to  be  her  true  method  as  she  grew  as  a 
fiction-maker :  the  early  unpublished  story  "  Susan," 
and  the  first  draught  of  "  Sense  and  Sensibility," 
had  the  epistolary  form  of  Richardson,  the  more 
undramatic  nature  of  which  is  self-evident.  As  for 
characterization  itself,  she  is  with  the  few:  she  has 
added  famous  specimens — men  and  women  both — to 
the  natural  history  of  fiction.  To  think  of  but  one 
book,  "  Pride  and  Prejudice,"  what  an  inimitable 
study  of  a  foolish  woman  is  Mrs.  Bennett!  Who 
has  drawn  the  Insufferable  patroness  more  vividly 
than  in  a  Lady  Catherine  dc  Bourgh!     And  is  not 


Ill)    MAsrr.us  OF  tiii',  r.xdi.isii  novel 

till'  svc'oiihaiit  cIiT'^ynmii  hit  oiY  to  tlie  life  in  Mr. 
Collins!  Lookiii<if  to  the  stories  as  a  f^roup,  are 
not  luT  luroiius,  with  Aiiiu-  I'iliot  perjiaps  at  their 
head,  wonderful  for  quiet  attraction  and  truth,  for 
distinctness,  charm  and  variety?  Her  personages 
are  all  observed;  she  had  the  admirable  good  sense 
not  to  go  beyond  her  last.  She  had  every  opportunity 
to  sec  the  county  squire,  tlie  baronet  puffed  up  with 
a  sense  of  his  own  importance,  the  rattle  and  rake 
of  her  day,  the  tuft  hunter,  the  gentleman  scholar, 
and  the  retired  admiral  (her  two  brothers  had  that 
rank) — and  she  wisely  decided  to  exhibit  these  and 
other  types  familiar  to  her  locality  and  class,  instead 
of  drawing  on  her  imagination  or  trying  to  extend 
by  guess-work  her  social  purview.  Her  women  in 
general,  whether  satiric  and  unpleasant  like  Mrs. 
Norris  in  "  Mansfield  Park  "  or  full  of  winning  qual- 
ities like  Catherine  Moreland  and  Anne  Eliot,  are 
drawn  with  a  sureness  of  hand,  an  insight,  a  complete 
comprehension  that  cannot  be  over-praised.  Jane 
Austen's  heroines  are  not  only  superior  to  her  heroes 
(some  of  whom  do  not  get  off  scot-free  from  the 
charge  of  priggishness)  but  they  excel  the  female 
characterization  of  all  English  novelists  save  only 
two  or  three, — one  of  them  being  Hardy.  Her  char- 
acters were  so  real  to  herself,  that  she  made  state- 
ments about  them  to  her  family  as  if  they  were  actual, 
— a  habit  which  reminds  of  Balzac. 

The  particular  angle  from  which  she  looked  on 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  111 

life  was  the  satirical:  therefore,  her  danger  is  ex- 
aggeration, caricature.  Yet  she  yielded  surprisingly 
little,  and  her  reputation  for  faithful  transcripts 
from  reality,  can  not  now  be  assailed.  Her  detached, 
whimsical  attitude  of  scrutinizing  the  little  cross- 
section  of  life  she  has  in  hand,  is  of  the  very  essence 
of  her  charm:  hers  is  that  wit  which  is  the  humor 
of  the  mind:  something  for  inward  smiling,  though 
the  features  may  not  change.  Her  comedy  has  in 
this  way  the  unerring  thrust  and  the  amused  tolerance 
of  a  Moliere  whom  her  admirer  Macaulay  should 
have  named  rather  than  Shakspere  when  wishing 
to  compliment  her  by  a  comparison ;  with  her  manner 
of  representation  and  her  view  of  life  in  mind,  one 
reverts  to  Meredith's  acute  description  of  the  spirit 
that  inheres  in  true  comedy.  "  That  slim,  feasting 
smile,  shaped  like  the  longbow,  was  once  a  big  round 
satyr's  laugh,  that  flung  up  the  brows  like  a  fortress 
lifted  by  gunpowder.  The  laugh  will  come  again, 
but  it  will  be  of  the  order  of  the  smile,  finely  tempered, 
showing  sunlight  of  the  mind,  mental  richness  rather 
than  noisy  enormity.  Its  common  aspect  is  one  of 
unsolicitous  observation,  as  if  surveying  a  full  field 
and  having  leisure  to  dart  on  its  chosen  morsels, 
without  any  flattering  eagerness.  Men's  future  upon 
earth  does  not  attract  it ;  their  honesty  and  shapeli- 
ness in  the  present  does ;  and  whenever  they  were  out 
of  proportion,  overthrown,  affected,  pretentious, 
bombastical,  hypocritical,  pedantic,  fantastically  del- 


11'2     MASTERS  OV  TIIK   KNCI.ISII    NOVEL 

icate;  whenever  it  sees  them  selt'-deceired  or  liood- 
wiiiked,  given  to  run  riot  in  iduhitries,  drifting  into 
vanities,  congregating  in  absurdities,  phmning  sliort- 
sightedlj,  plotting  dementedly ;  whenever  tliej  are  at 
variance  with  tlieir  professions,  and  violate  the  un- 
written but  j)erce})til)le  laws  binding  tlieni  in  con- 
sideration one  to  another;  whenever  they  offend 
sound  reason,  fair  justice;  are  false  in  humility  or 
mined  with  conceit,  individually  or  in  the  bulk — the 
Spirit  overhead  will  look  humanely  malign  and  cast 
an  oblique  light  on  them,  followed  by  volleys  of 
silvery  laughter.     That  is  the  Comic  Spirit." 

If  the  "  silvery  laughter "  betimes  sounds  a  bit 
sharp  and  thinly  feminine,  what  would  j'ou  have.'' 
Even  genius  must  be  subject  to  the  defect  of  its 
quality.  Still,  it  must  be  confessed  that  this  attitude 
of  the  artist  observer  is  broken  in  upon  a  little  in 
the  later  novels,  beginning  with  "  Mansfield  Park," 
by  a  growing  tendency  to  moral  on  the  time,  a 
tendency  that  points  ominously  to  didacticism. 
There  is  something  of  the  difference  in  Jane  Austen 
between  early  and  late,  that  we  shall  afterwards 
meet  in  that  other  great  woman  novelist,  George 
Eliot.  One  might  push  the  point  too  far,  but  it  is 
fair  to  make  it. 

We  may  also  inquire — trying  to  see  the  thing 
freshly,  with  independence,  and  to  get  away  from 
the  mere  handing-on  of  a  traditional  opinion — if 
Jane  Austen's  character-drawing,  so  far-famed  for 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  113 

its  truth,  does  not  at  times  o'erstep  the  modesty  of 
Nature.  Goldwin  Smith,  in  his  biography  of  her, 
is  quite  right  in  pointing  out  that  she  unquestionably 
overdraws  her  types  :  Mr.  Collins  is  at  moments  almost 
a  reminder  of  Uriah  Heap  for  oily  submissiveness :  Sir 
Walter  Eliot's  conceit  goes  so  far  he  seems  a  theory 
more  than  a  man,  a  "  humor "  in  the  Ben  Jonson 
sense.  So,  too,  the  valetudinarianism  of  Mr.  Wood- 
house,  like  that  of  Smollett's  Bramble,  is  something 
strained;  so  is  Lady  de  Bourgh's  pride  and  General 
Tilney's  tyranny.  Critics  are  fond  of  violent  con- 
trasts and  to  set  over  against  one  another  authors 
so  unlike,  for  example,  as  Miss  Austen  and  Dickens 
is  a  favorite  occupation.  Also  is  it  convenient  to 
put  a  tag  on  every  author:  a  mask  reading  realist, 
romanticist,  psycliologue,  sensation-monger,  or  some 
such  designation,  and  then  hold  him  to  the  name. 
Thus,  in  the  case  of  Austen  it  is  a  temptation  to 
call  her  the  greatest  truth-teller  among  novelists,  and 
so  leave  her.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  great  as 
realist  and  artist  as  she  was,  she  does  not  hesitate 
at  that  heightening  of  effect  which  insures  clearer 
seeing,  longer  remembering  and  a  keener  pleasure. 
Perhaps  she  Is  in  the  broad  view  all  the  better  artist 
because  of  this:  a  thought  sadly  forgotten  by  the 
extreme  veritists  of  our  day.  It  is  the  business  of 
art  to  improve  upon  Nature. 

Again  the  reader  of  Jane  Austen  must  expect  to 
find  her  with  the  limitation  of  her  time  and  place: 


lit     MASTERS  OF  THE  EXGUSII  NOVEL 

it  is,  frankly,  a  clrciulfiilly  contracted  view  of  the 
world  she  represents,  just  for  the  reason  that  it  is 
the  view  of  her  Hampshire  gentry  in  tlie  day  of  the 
third  George.  The  ideals  seem  low,  narrow;  they 
lack  air  and  light.  Woman's  only  role  is  marriage; 
female  propriety  chokes  originality ;  money  talks, 
family  places  individuals,  and  the  estimate  of  sex- 
relations  is  intricately  involved  with  these  e'ldola. 
Tliere  is  little  sense  of  the  higher  and  broader  issues : 
the  spiritual  restrictions  are  as  definite  as  the  social 
and  geographical:  the  insularity  is  magnificent.  It 
all  makes  you  think  of  Tennyson's  lines: 

"  They  take  the  rustic  cackle  of  their  burg 
For  the  great  wave  that  echoes  round  the  world ! " 

Hence,  one  of  the  b3'c-products  of  Miss  Austen's 
books  is  their  revelation  of  hide-bound  class-distinc- 
tion, the  not  seldom  ugly  parochialism — ^the  utili- 
tarian aims  of  a  circle  of  highly  respectable  English 
country  folk  during  the  closing  years  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  The  opening  sentence  of  her  master- 
piece reads :  "  It  is  a  truth  universally  acknowledged 
that  a  single  man  in  possession  of  a  good  fortune 
must  be  in  want  of  a  wife."  Needless  to  say  that 
"  universally  "  here  is  applicable  to  a  tiny  area  of 
earth  obsened  by  a  most  charming  spinster,  at  a 
certain  period  of  society  now  fast  fading  into  a 
dim  past.  But  the  sentence  might  serve  fairly  well 
as   a  motto   for  all  her  work:  every  plot  she  con- 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  115 

ceived  is  firm-based  upon  this  as  a  major  premise, 
and  the  particular  feminine  deduction  from  those 
words  may  be  found  in  the  following  taken  from  an- 
other work,  "  Mansfield  Park  " :  "  Being  now  in  her 
twenty-first  year,  Maria  Bertram  was  beginning  to 
think  marriage  a  duty ;  and  as  a  marriage  with  Mr. 
Rushford  would  give  her  the  enjoyment  of  a  larger 
income  than  her  father's,  as  well  as  insure  her  the 
house  in  town,  which  was  now  a  prime  object,  it 
became  by  the  same  rule  of  moral  obligation,  her 
evident  duty  to  marry  Mr.  Rushford  if  she  could." 
The  egocentric  worldliness  of  this  is  superb.  The 
author,  it  may  be  granted,  has  a  certain  playful 
satire  in  her  manner  here  and  elseAvhere,  when  setting 
forth  such  views :  yet  it  seems  to  be  fair  to  her  to 
say  that,  taking  her  fiction  as  a  whole,  she  contentedly 
accepts  this  order  of  things  and  builds  upon  it.  She 
and  her  world  exhibit  not  only  worldliness  but  that 
"  other-worldliness "  which  is  equally  self-centered 
and  materialistic.  Jane  Austen  is  a  highly  enjoy- 
able mondaine.  To  compare  her  gamut  with  that 
of  George  Eliot  or  George  Meredith  is  to  appreciate 
how  much  has  happened  since  in  social  and  individual 
evolution.  The  wide  social  sympathy  that  throbs 
in  modern  fiction  is  hardly  born. 

In  spite,  too,  of  the  thorough  good  breeding  of  this 
woman  writer,  the  primness  even  of  her  outlook  upon 
the  world,  there  is  plain  speaking  in  her  books,  even 
touches  of  coarseness  that  are  but  the  echo  of  the 


lu;     MASTKUS  OF  TIIK  FA'GIJSIT  NOVl-L 

ranknoss  which  jibouiuls  in  the  Ficldiiig-Sinulk'tt 
school.     Happily,  it  is  a  faint  one. 

Granting  the  sliglitness  of  her  plots  and  their  fam- 
ily likeness,  warm  praise  is  due  for  the  skill  wilh 
which  they  arc  coniluctcd ;  they  are  neatly  articu- 
lated, the  clinuictic  effect  is,  as  a  rule,  beautifully 
graduated  and  sure  in  its  final  force:  the  multitude 
of  littles  which  go  to  make  up  the  story  are,  upon 
examination,  seen  to  be  not  irrelevant  but  members 
of  the  one  body,  working  together  towards  a  common 
end.  It  is  a  puzzling  question  how  this  firm  art 
was  secured :  since  technique  does  not  mean  so  nmch 
a  gift  from  heaven  as  the  taking  of  forethought,  the 
self-conscious  skill  of  a  practitioner.  Miss  Austen, 
setting  down  her  thoughts  of  an  evening  in  a  copy- 
book in  her  lap,  interrupted  by  conversations  and 
at  the  beck  and  call  of  household  duties,  does  not 
seem  as  one  who  was  acquiring  the  mastery  of  a 
difficult  art-form.  But  the  wind  bloweth  where  it 
listeth — and  the  evidences  of  skill  are  there;  we  can 
but  chronicle  the  fact,  and  welcome  the  result. 

She  was  old-fashioned  in  her  adherence  to  the 
"  pleasant  ending " ;  realist  though  she  was,  she 
could  not  go  to  the  lengths  either  of  theme  or  in- 
terpretation in  the  portrayal  of  life  which  later  novel- 
ists have  so  sturdily  ventured.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand that  with  her  avowed  dislike  of  tragedy,  living 
in  a  time  when  it  was  regarded  as  the  business  of 
fiction  to  be   amusing — when,   in  short,   it   was   not 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  117 

fashionable  to  be  disagreeable,  as  it  has  since  become 
— Jane  Austen  should  have  preferred  to  round  out 
her  stories  with  a  "  curtain  "  that  sends  the  audience 
home  content.  She  treats  this  desire  in  herself  with 
a  gentle  cynicism  which,  read  to-day,  detracts  some- 
what perhaps  from  the  verity  of  her  pictures.  She 
steps  out  from  the  picture  at  the  close  of  her  book 
to  say  a  word  in  proper  person.  Thus,  in  "  Mans- 
field Park,"  in  bringing  Fanny  Price  into  the  arms 
of  her  early  lover,  Edmund,  she  says :  "  I  purposely 
abstain  from  dates  on  this  occasion,  that  every  one 
may  be  at  liberty  to  fix  their  own,  aware  that  the 
cure  of  unconquerable  passions  and  the  transfer  of 
unchanging  attachments  must  vary  much  as  to  time 
in  different  people.  I  only  entreat  everybody  to 
believe  that  exactly  at  the  time  when  it  was  quite 
natural  that  it  should  be  so,  and  not  a  week  earlier, 
Edmund  did  cease  to  care  about  Miss  Crawford  and 
became  as  anxious  to  marry  Fanny  as  Fanny  herself 
could  desire." 

But  it  cannot  be  urged  against  her  that  it  was  her 
habit  to  eff'ect  these  agreeable  conclusions  to  her 
social  histories  by  tampering  with  probability  or 
violently  wresting  events  from  their  proper  sequence. 
Life  is  neither  comedy  nor  tragedy — it  is  tragi-com- 
edy,  or,  if  you  prefer  the  graver  emphasis,  comi- 
tragedy.  Miss  Austen,  truth-lover,  has  as  good  a 
right  to  leave  her  lovers  at  the  juncture  when  we 
see  them  happily  mated,  as  at  those  more  grievous 


lis     MASri'.lJS  or  TllF.   KNGLISII  NOVEL 

juiu-turos  so  uuich  aliVctctl  by  later  fiction.  Both 
roprosontations  may  bo  true  or  false  in  effect,  accord- 
iiii;  as  tlie  fictionist  throws  emphasis  and  manages 
li^ht-and-shade.  A  final  page  whereon  all  is  coulcur 
(If  I'osc  lias,  no  doubt,  an  artificial  look  to  us  now:  a 
writer  of  Miss  Austen's  school  or  her  kind  of  genius 
for  reporting  fact,  could  not  have  finished  her  fictions 
in  just  the  same  way.  There  is  no  blame  properly, 
since  tlie  phenomenon  has  to  do  Avith  the  growth  of 
human  thought,  the  change  of  ideals  reflected  in 
literature. 

For  one  more  point:  Miss  Austen  only  knew,  or 
anyhow,  only  cared  to  write,  one  sort  of  Novel — the 
love  story.  With  her,  a  young  man  and  woman 
(or  two  couples  having  similar  relations)  are  inter- 
ested in  each  other  and  after  various  complications 
arising  from  their  personal  characteristics,  from  fam- 
ily interference  or  other  criss-cross  of  events,  mis- 
placement of  affection  being  a  trump  card,  are  united 
in  the  end.  The  formula  is  of  primitive  simplicity. 
The  wonder  is  that  so  much  of  involvement  and 
genuine  human  interest  can  be  got  out  of  such  scant 
use  of  the  possible  pennutations  of  plot.  It  is  all 
in  the  way  it  is  done. 

Love  stories  are  still  written  in  profusion,  and 
we  imagine  that  so  compelling  a  motive  for  fiction 
will  still  be  vital  (in  some  one  of  its  innumerable 
phases)  in  the  twenty-fifth  century.  Yet  it  is  true 
that  novelists  now  point  with  pride  to  the  work  of 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  119 

the  last  generation  of  their  art,  in  that  it  has  so 
often  made  sex  love  subsidiary  to  other  appeals,  or 
even  eliminated  it  altogether  from  their  books.  Some 
even  boast  of  the  fact  that  not  a  woman  is  to  be 
found  in  the  pages  of  their  latest  creation.  Nearly 
one  hundred  years  ago,  Defoe  showed  the  possibility 
(if  you  happen  to  have  genius)  of  making  a  power- 
ful story  without  the  introduction  of  the  eternal 
feminine:  Crusoe  could  not  declare  with  Cyrano  de 
Bergerac : 

"  Je  vous  dois  d'avoir  eu  tout  au  moins,  une  amie ; 
Grace  a  vous,  une  robe  a  passe  dans  ma  vie." 

It  is  but  natural  that,  immensely  powerful  as  it 
is,  such  a  motive  should  have  been  over-worked:  the 
gamut  of  variations  has  been  run  from  love  licit 
to  love  illicit,  and  love  degenerate  and  abnormal 
to  no-love-at-all.  But  any  publisher  will  assure  you 
that  still  "  love  conquers  all " ;  and  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century  any  novelist  who  did  not  write 
tales  of  amatory  interest  was  a  fool:  the  time  was 
not  ripe  to  consider  an  extension  of  the  theme  nor 
a  shifted  point  of  view.  For  the  earlier  story-tellers, 
in  the  language  of  Browning's  lyric, 

"  Love   is   best." 

Jane  Austen's  diction — or  better,  her  style,  which 
is  more  than  diction — in  writing  her  series  of  social 
studies,  affords  a  fine  example  of  the  adaptation  of 
means  to  end.      Given  the  work  to  be  accomplished, 


I'.'O     MASTKUS  OV    Till:  ENGLISH  iNOVEL 

the  tools  are  perfect  iii.strumeiits  for  the  purpose. 
The  stiulent  of  Knglish  style  in  its  evolution  must 
marvel  at  the  idiom  of  Austen,  so  strangely  modern 
is  it,  so  little  has  time  been  able  to  make  it  passe. 
From  her  first  book,  her  manner  seems  to  be  easy, 
adequate,  unforced,  with  nothing  about  it  self-con- 
scious or  gauche.  In  the  development  of  some  great 
writers  the  change  from  unsureness  and  vulgarity 
to  the  mastery  of  mature  years  can  be  traced:  Dick- 
ens is  one  such.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  can  be 
found  in  Austen.  She  has  in  "  Northanger  Abbey  " 
and  "  Pride  and  Prejudice" — early  works — a  power 
in  idiomatic  Knglish  which  enables  her  reader  to  see 
lier  thought  through  its  limpid  medium  of  language, 
giving,  it  may  be,  as  little  attention  to  the  form  of 
expression  as  a  man  uninstructed  in  the  niceties  of 
a  woman's  dress  gives  to  those  details  which  none 
the  less  in  their  totality  produce  on  him  a  most 
formidable  effect.  Miss  Austen's  is  not  the  style  of 
startling  tricks:  nor  has  she  the  flashing  felicities  of 
a  Stevenson  which  lead  one  to  return  to  a  passage 
for  re-gustation.  Her  manner  rarely  if  ever  takes 
the  attention  from  her  matter.  But  her  words  and 
their  marshaling  (always  bearing  in  her  mind  her  un- 
ambitious purpose)  make  as  fit  a  garment  for  her 
thought  as  was  ever  devised  upon  English  looms. 
If  this  is  style,  then  Jane  Austen  possesses  it,  as 
have  very  few  of  the  race.  There  is  just  a  touch 
of  the  archaic  in  it,  enough  to  give  a  quaintness  that 


REALISM:  JANE  AUSTEN  121 

has  charai  without  being  j'^^'^cious  in  tlie  French 
sense ;  hers  are  breeding  and  dignity  without  distance 
or  stiffness.  Now  and  again  the  life-Hkeness  is  ac- 
centuated by  a  sort  of  undress  which  goes  to  the 
verge  of  the  slip-shod — as  if  a  gentlewoman  should 
not  be  too  particular,  lest  she  seem  professional; 
the  sort  of  liberty  with  the  starched  proprieties  of 
English  which  Thackeray  later  took  with  such  de- 
lightful results.  Of  her  style  as  a  whole,  then,  we 
may  say  that  it  is  good  literature  for  the  very  reason 
that  it  is  not  literai'y ;  neither  mannered  nor  mincing 
nor  affectedly  plain.  The  style  is  the  woman — and 
the  woman  wrote  as  a  lady  should  who  is  portraying 
genteel  society ;  very  much  as  she  would  talk — with 
the  difference  the  artist  will  always  make  between 
life  and  its  expression  in  letters. 

Miss  Austen's  place  was  won  slowly  but  surely, 
unlike  those  authors  whose  works  spring  into  in- 
stantaneous popularity,  to  be  forgotten  with  equal 
promptness,  or  others  who  like  Mrs.  Stowe  write  a 
book  which,  for  historical  reasons,  gains  immediate 
vogue  and  yet  retains  a  certain  reputation.  The 
author  of  "  Pride  and  Prejudice  "  gains  in  position 
with  the  passing  of  the  years.  She  is  one  of  the 
select  company  of  English  writers  who  after  a  cen- 
tury are  really  read,  really  of  more  than  historical 
significance.  New  and  attractive  editions  of  her 
books  are  frequent :  she  not  only  holds  critical  regard 
(and  to  criticism  her  importance  is  permanent)  but 


lv."J     MASTKHS  OF    TlIK   KNdl.ISII   NOVEL 

is  read  hy  an  appreciable  number  of  the  lovers  of 
sound  literature;  read  far  more  generally,  \vc  feel 
sure,  than  Disraeli  or  Ihilwer  or  Charles  Kingslej, 
who  are  so  nnich  nearer  our  own  day  and  who  filled  so 
large  a  place  in  their  respective  times.  Compared 
with  them,  Jane  Austen  appears  a  serene  classic. 
When  all  is  said,  the  test,  the  supreme  test,  is  to 
be  read:  that  means  that  an  author  is  vitally  alive, 
not  dead  on  the  shelves  of  a  library  where  he  has 
been  placed  out  of  deference  to  the  literary  Mrs. 
Grundy.  Lessing  felt  this  when  he  wrote  liis  bril- 
liant quatrain : 

Wer   wird   nicht   einen   Klopstock   loben, 
Doch  wird  ihn  jeder  lesen?  Nein ! 
Wir  wollen  wenigcr  erhoben 
Und  fleissiger  gelcsen  sein. 

So  was  the  century  which  was  to  be  conspicuous 
for  its  development  of  fiction  that  should  portray 
the  social  relations  of  contemporary  life  with  fine 
and  ever-increasing  truth,  most  happily  inaugurated 
by  a  woman  who  founded  its  traditions  and  was  a 
wonderful  example  of  its  method.  She  is  the  liter- 
ary godmother  of  Trollope  and  Howells,  and  of 
all  other  novelists  since  who  prefer  to  the  most  spec- 
tacular uses  of  the  imagination  the  unsensational 
chronicling  of  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT 

The  year  after  the  appearance  of  "  Pride  and 
Prejudice  "  there  began  to  be  published  in  England 
a  series  of  anonymous  historical  stories  to  which  the 
name  of  Waverley  Novels  came  to  be  affixed,  the  title 
of  the  first  volume.  It  was  not  until  the  writer  had 
produced  for  more  than  a  decade  a  splendid  list  of 
fictions  familiar  to  all  lovers  of  literature,  that  his 
name — by  that  time  guessed  by  many  and  admitted 
to  some — was  publicly  announced  as  that  of  Walter 
Scott — a  man  who,  before  he  had  printed  a  single 
romance,  had  won  more  than  national  importance  by 
a  succession  of  narrative  poems  beginning  with  "  The 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel." 

Few  careers,  personal  and  professional,  in  letters, 
are  more  stimulating  and  attractive  than  that  of 
Scott.  His  life  was  winsome,  his  work  of  that  large 
and  noble  order  that  implies  a  worthy  personality 
behind  it.  Scott,  the  man,  as  he  is  portrayed  in 
Lockhart's  Life  and  the  ever-delightful  Letters,  is 
as  suitable  an  object  of  admiration  as  Scott  the 
author  of  "  Guy  Mannering  "  and  "  Old  Mortality." 
And  when  we  reflect  that  by  the  might  of  his  genius 

133 


in     MASTERS  OF  TIIK  KXGLISH  NOVEL 

he  set  liis  seal  on  the  historical  romance,  that  tlie 
modem  romance  derives  from  Scott,  and  that,  more- 
over, in  s])ite  of  the  remarkable  achievements  in  this 
order  of  fiction  during  almost  a  century,  he  remains 
not  only  its  founder  but  its  chief  ornament,  his  con- 
tribution to  modern  fiction  begins  to  be  appreciated. 
The  characteristics  of  the  Novel  proper  as  a  spe- 
cific kind  of  fiction  have  been  already  indicated  and 
illustrated  in  this  study :  we  have  seen  that  it  is  a 
picture  of  real  life  in  a  setting  of  to-day:  the  ro- 
mance, wliich  is  Scott's  business,  is  distinguished 
from  this  in  its  use  of  past  time  and  historic  per- 
sonages, its  heightening  of  effect  by  the  introducing 
of  the  exceptional  in  scene  and  character,  its  general 
higher  color  in  the  conductment  of  the  narrative:  and 
above  all,  its  emphasis  upon  the  larger,  nobler,  more 
inspiring  aspects  of  humanity.  This,  be  it  under- 
stood, is  the  romance  of  modem  times,  not  the  elder 
romance  which  was  irresponsible  in  its  picture  of 
life,  falsely  idealistic.  When  Sir  Walter  began  his 
fiction,  the  trend  of  the  English  Novel  inheriting  the 
method  and  purpose  of  Richardson,  was  away  from 
the  romantic  in  this  sense.  The  analysis  given  has, 
it  may  be  hoped,  made  this  plain.  It  was  by  the 
sheer  force  of  his  creative  gift,  therefore,  that  Scott 
set  the  fashion  for  the  romance  in  fiction :  aided 
though  he  doubtless  was  by  the  general  romanticism 
introduced  by  the  greater  English  poets  and  ex- 
pressive of  the  movement  in  literature  towards  free- 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         125 

dom,  which  folloAved  the  French  Revolution,  That 
Scott  at  this  time  gave  the  fiction  an  impulse  not 
in  the  central  flow  of  development  is  shown  in  the 
fact  of  its  rapid  decadence  after  he  passed  away. 
While  the  romance  is  thus  a  diff'erent  thing  from  the 
Novel,  modern  fiction  is  close  woven  of  the  two 
strands  of  realism  and  romance,  and  a  comprehensive 
study  must  have  both  in  mind.  Even  authors  like 
Dickens,  Thackeray  and  Eliot,  who  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  stalwart  realists,  could  not  avoid  a  single 
sally  each  into  romance,  with  "  A  Tale  of  Two 
Cities,"  "  Henry  Esmond  "  and  "  Romola  " ;  and  on 
the  other  hand,  romanticists  like  Hawthorne  and 
Stevenson  have  used  the  methods  and  manner  of  the 
realist,  giving  their  loftiest  flights  the  most  solid 
groundwork  of  psychologic  reality.  It  must  always 
be  borne  in  mind  that  there  is  a  romantic  way  of 
dealing  with  fact:  that  a  novel  of  contemporary  so- 
ciety which  implies  its  more  exceptional  possibilities 
and  gives  due  regard  to  the  symbol  behind  every 
so-called  fact,  can  be,  in  a  good  sense,  romantic. 
Surely,  that  is  a  more  acceptable  use  of  the  realistic 
formula  which,  by  the  exercise  of  an  imaginative 
grasp  of  history,  makes  alive  and  veritable  for  us 
some  hitherto  unrealized  person  or  by-gone  epoch. 
Scott  is  thus  a  romanticist  because  ho  gave  the  ro- 
mantic implications  of  reality:  and  is  a  novelist  in 
that  broader,  better  definition  of  the  word  which  ad- 
mits it  to  be  the  novelist's  business  to  portray  soci.il 


1J()     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

luiniiuiity,  past  or  present,  by  means  of  a  unifieil, 
progressive  prose  narrative.  Scott,  altliougli  he 
takes  advantage  of  the  romancer's  privilege  of  a  free 
use  of  the  historic  past,  the  presentation  of  its  heroic 
episodes  and  spectacuhir  events,  is  a  novehst,  after 
all,  because  he  deals  with  the  recognizably  human, 
not  with  the  grotesque,  supernatural,  impossible.  He 
imparts  a  vivid  sense  of  the  social  interrelations,  for 
the  most  part  in  a  medieval  environment,  but  in 
any  case  in  an  environment  wliich  one  recognizes 
as  controlled  by  human  laws ;  not  the  brain-freak 
of  a  pseudo-idealist.  Scott's  Novels,  judged  broadly, 
make  an  impression  of  unit}',  movement  and  climax. 
To  put  it  tersely:  he  painted  manners,  interpreted 
character  in  an  historic  setting  and  furnished  story 
for  story's  sake.  Nor  was  his  genius  helpless  Avith- 
out  the  historic  prop.  Certain  of  his  major  suc- 
cesses are  hardly  historical  narratives  at  all;  the 
scene  of  "  Guy  Mannering,"  for  example,  and  of 
"  The  Antiquary,"  is  laid  in  a  time  but  little  before 
that  which  was  known  personally  to  the  romancer 
in  his  young  manhood. 

It  will  be  seen  in  this  theory  of  realism  and  ro- 
mance that  so  far  from  antagonists  are  the  story 
of  truth  and  the  story  of  poetry,  they  merely  stand 
for  diverging  preferences  in  handling  material.  No- 
body has  stated  this  distinction  better  than  America's 
greatest  romancer,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  Having 
"  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  "  in  mind,  he  says : 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         127 

*'  When  a  writer  calls  his  work  a  romance,  it  need 
hardly  be  observed  that  he  wishes  to  claim  a  certain 
latitude  both  as  to  its  fashion  and  material,  which 
he  would  not  have  felt  himself  entitled  to  assume, 
had  he  professed  to  be  writing  a  novel.  The  latter 
form  of  composition  is  presumed  to  aim  at  a  very 
minute  fidelity,  not  only  to  the  possible,  but  to  the 
probable  and  ordinary  course  of  man's  experience. 
The  former,  while  as  a  work  of  art  it  must  rigidly 
subject  itself  to  laws  and  while  it  sins  unpardonably 
so  far  as  it  may  swerve  aside  from  the  truth  of 
the  human  heart,  has  fairly  a  right  to  present  that 
truth  under  circumstances  to  a  great  extent  of  the 
author's  own  choosing  or  creation.  If  he  think  fit, 
also,  he  may  so  manage  his  atmospherical  medium  as 
to  bring  out  or  mellow  the  lights  and  deepen  and 
enrich  the  shadows  of  the  picture.  He  will  be  wise, 
no  doubt,  to  make  a  very  moderate  use  of  the  privi- 
leges here  stated,  and,  especially,  to  mingle  the  mar- 
velous rather  as  a  slight,  delicate  and  evanescent 
flavor  than  as  any  portion  of  the  actual  substance 
of  the  dish  offered  to  the  public.  The  point  of 
view  in  which  this  tale  comes  under  the  romantic 
definition  lies  in  the  attempt  to  connect  a  by-gone 
time  with  the  very  present  that  is  flitting  away  from 
us.  It  is  a  legend,  prolonging  itself  from  an  epoch 
now  gray  in  the  distance,  down  into  our  own  broad 
daylight,  and  bringing  along  with  it  some  of  its 
legendary   mist,  which  the   reader  may   either  dis- 


i'2s    MAsri:i{S  OF  'I'm:  lACii.isii  novel 

ronrjird  or  allow  it  to  float  almost  impcrceptiblj  about 
the  characters  and  events  for  the  sake  of  a  pictur- 
esque effect.  The  narrative,  it  may  be,  is  woven 
of  so  liumble  a  texture,  as  to  require  this  advantage 
and  at  the  same  time  to  render  it  the  more  difficult 
of  attainment."  These  words  may  be  taken  as  the 
modem  announcement  of  Romance,  as  distinguished 
from  that  of  elder  times. 

The  many  romantic  Novels  written  by  Scott  can 
be  separated  into  two  groups,  marked  by  a  cleavage 
of  time:  the  year  being  1819,  the  date  of  the  pub- 
lication of  "  Ivanhoe."  In  the  earlier  group,  con- 
taining the  fiction  which  appeared  during  the  five 
3'ears  from  1814  to  1819,  we  find  world-welcomed 
masterpieces  which  are  an  expression  of  the  unforced 
first  fruits  of  his  genius :  the  three  series  of  "  Tales 
of  My  Landlord,"  "  Guy  Mannering,"  "  Rob  Roy," 
"  The  Heart  of  Midlothian  "  and  "  Old  Mortality," 
to  mention  the  most  conspicuous.  To  the  second 
division  belong  stories  equally  well  known,  many  of 
them  impressive :  "  The  Monastery,"  "  Kenilworth," 
"  Quentin  Durward,"  and  "  Red  Gauntlet  "  among 
them,  but  as  a  whole  marking  a  falling  off  of  power 
as  increasing  years  and  killing  cares  made  what  was 
at  first  hardly  more  than  a  sportive  effort,  a  burden 
under  wdiich  a  man,  at  last  broken,  staggered  toward 
the  desired  goal.  There  is  no  manlier,  more  gallant 
spectacle  offered  in  the  annals  of  literature  than  this 
of  Walter  Scott,  silent  partner  in  a  publisliing  house 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT        129 

and  ruined  by  its  failure  after  he  has  set  up  country 
gentleman  and  gratified  his  expensive  taste  for  ba- 
ronial life,  as  he  buckles  to,  and  for  weary  years 
strives  to  pay  off  by  the  product  of  his  pen  the 
obligations  incurred ;  his  executors  were  able  to  clear 
his  estate  of  debt.  It  was  an  immense  drudgery 
(with  all  allowance  for  its  moments  of  creative  joy) 
accomplished  with  high  spirits  and  a  kind  of  French 
gayety.  Nor,  though  the  best  quality  of  the  work 
was  injured  towards  the  end  of  the  long  task,  and 
Scott  died  too  soon  at  sixty-one,  was  the  born  raconr 
teur  in  him  choked  by  this  grim  necessity  of  grind. 
There  have  been  in  modern  fiction  a  few  masters, 
and  but  a  few,  who  were  natural  improvvlsatori :  con- 
spicuous among  them  are  Dumas  the  elder  and  Wal- 
ter Scott.  Such  writers  pour  forth  from  a  very 
spring  of  effortless  power  invention  after  invention, 
born  of  the  impulse  of  a  rich  imagination,  a  mind 
stored  with  bountiful  material  for  such  shaping,  and 
a  nature  soaked  with  the  humanities.  They  are 
great  lovers  of  life,  great  personalities,  gifted,  re- 
sourceful, unstinted  in  their  giving,  ever  with  some- 
thing of  the  boy  in  them,  the  careless  prodigals  of 
literature.  Often  it  seems  as  if  they  toiled  not  to 
acquire  the  craft  of  the  writer,  nor  do  they  lose  time 
over  the  labor  of  the  file.  To  the  end,  they  seem  in 
a  way  like  glorious  amateurs.  They  are  at  the 
antipodes  of  those  careful  craftsmen  with  whom  all 
is  forethought,  plan  and  revision.      Scott,  fired  by 


130     MASTERS  OF  THE  EN(]LISH   NOVEL 

a  period,  a  diaractcr  or  scene,  eoinnionly  sat  down 
witliout  seeing  his  way  t]n"ough  and  wrote  currcnte 
calamo,  letting  creation  take  care  of  its  own.  The 
description  of  him  by  a  contemporary  is  familiar 
where  he  was  observed  at  a  window,  reeling  off  the 
manuscript  sheets  of  his  first  romance. 

"  Since  we  sat  down  I  have  been  watching  that 
confounded  hand — it  fascinates  my  eye.  It  never 
stops — page  after  page  is  finished  and  thrown  on 
the  heap  of  manuscript,  and  still  it  goes  on  unwearied 
— and  so  it  will  be  until  candles  are  brought  in,  and 
God  knows  how  long  after  that.  It  is  the  same 
every  night." 

The  great  merits  of  such  a  nature  and  the  method 
that  is  its  outcome  should  not  blind  us  to  its  dangers, 
some  of  which  Scott  did  not  escape.  Schoolboy's 
to-day  are  able  to  point  out  defects  in  his  style, 
glibly  talking  of  loosely-built  sentences,  redundancies, 
difFuseness,  or  what  not.  He  seems  long-winded  to 
the  rising  generation,  and  it  may  be  said  in  their 
defense  that  there  are  Novels  of  Scott  which  if  cut 
down  one-third  would  be  improved.  Critics,  too, 
speak  of  his  anachronisms,  his  huddled  endings,  the 
stiffness  of  his  young  gentleman  heroes,  his  apparent 
indifference  to  the  laws  of  good  construction ;  as 
well  as  of  his  Tory  limitations,  the  ponderosity  of 
his  manner  and  the  unmodernness  of  his  outlook  on 
the  world  along  with  the  simple  superficiality  of  his 
psychology.       All   this   may   cheerfully   be  granted, 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         131 

and  yet  the  Scott  lover  will  stoutly  maintain  that 
the  spirit  and  the  truth  are  here,  that  the  Waverley 
books  possess  the  great  elements  of  fiction-making: 
not  without  reason  did  they  chann  Europe  as  well 
as  the  English-speaking  lands  for  tAventy  years.  The 
Scott  romances  will  always  be  mentioned,  with  the 
work  of  Burns,  Carlyle  and  Stevenson,  when  Scot- 
land's contribution  to  English  letters  is  under  dis- 
cussion ;  his  position  is  fortified  as  he  recedes  into 
the  past,  which  so  soon  engulfs  lesser  men.  And 
it  is  because  he  was  one  of  the  world's  natural  story- 
tellers: his  career  is  an  impressive  object-lesson  for 
those  who  would  elevate  technique  above  all  else. 

He  produced  romances  which  dealt  with  English 
history  centuries  before  his  own  day,  or  with  periods 
near  his  time:  Scotch  romances  of  like  kind  which 
had  to  do  with  the  historic  past  of  his  native  land : 
romances  of  humbler  life  and  less  stately  entourage, 
the  scenes  of  which  were  laid  nearer,  sometimes  al- 
most within  his  own  day.  He  was,  in  instances, 
notably  successful  in  all  these  kinds,  but  perhaps 
most  of  all  in  the  stories  falling  in  the  two  categories 
last-named :  which,  like  "  Old  Mortality,"  have  the 
full  flavor  of  Scotch  soil. 

The  nature  of  the  Novels  he  was  to  produce  became 
evident  with  the  first  of  them  all,  "  Waverley."  Here 
is  a  border  tale  which  narrates  the  adventures  of 
a  scion  of  that  house  among  the  loyal  Highlanders 
temporarily  a  rebel  to  the  reigning  EngHsh  sovereign 


13'2     MASri.HS  Ol"    llli:   I'A'CII.ISII   NOVEL 

and  a  recruit  in  the  interests  of  tlie  young  pretender: 
his  fortunes,  in  love  and  war,  and  his  eventual  re- 
instatement in  the  King's  service  and  happiness  with 
the  woman  of  his  c-hoice.  While  it  might  be  too 
sweeping  to  say  that  there  was  in  this  first  romance 
(wliich  has  never  ranked  with  his  best)  the  whole 
secret  of  tiie  Scott  hist(jrical  story,  it  is  true  that 
the  book  is  typical,  that  here  as  in  the  long  line  of 
brilliantly  envisaged  chronicle  histories  that  followed, 
some  of  them  far  superior  to  this  initial  attempt, 
are  to  be  found  the  characteristic  method  and  charm 
of  Sir  Walter.  Plere,  as  elsewhere,  the  reader  is 
oflfered  picturesque  color,  ever  varied  scenes,  striking 
situations,  salient  charactei's  and  a  certain  nobility 
both  of  theme  and  manner  that  comes  from  the 
accustomed  representation  of  life  in  which  large  is- 
sues of  family  and  state  are  involved — ^the  whole 
merged  in  a  mood  of  fealty  and  love.  You  con- 
stantly feel  in  Scott  that  life  "  means  intensely  and 
means  good."  A  certain  amount  of  lovable  parti- 
sanship and  prejudice  goes  with  the  view,  not  un- 
wclcomely;  there  is  also  some  carelessness  as  to  the 
minute  details  of  fact.  But  the  effect  of  truth,  both 
in  character  and  setting,  is  overwhelming.  Scott 
has  vivified  English  and  Scotch  history  more  than 
all  the  history  books :  he  saw  it  himself — so  we  see 
it.  One  of  the  reasons  his  work  rings  true — whereas 
Mrs.  RadclifFe's  adventure  tales  seem  fictitious  as 
well  as  feeble — is  because  it  is  the  natural  outcome 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         133 

of  his  life:  all  his  interest,  his  liking,  his  belief  went 
into  the  Novels.  When  he  sat  down  at  the  mature 
age  of  forty-three  to  make  fiction,  there  was  behind 
him  the  large  part  of  a  lifetime  of  unconscious  prep- 
aration for  what  he  had  to  do :  for  years  he  had 
been  steeped  in  the  folk-lore  and  legend  of  his  native 
country;  its  local  history  had  been  his  hobby;  he 
had  not  only  read  its  humbler  literature  but  wan- 
dered widely  among  its  people,  absorbed  its  language 
and  its  life,  felt  "  the  very  pulse  of  the  machine." 
Hence  he  differed  toto  coslo  from  an  archeologist 
turned  romancer  like  the  German  Ebers :  being  rather 
a  genial  traveler  who,  after  telling  tales  of  his  ex- 
periences by  word  of  mouth  at  the  tavern  hearth, 
sets  them  down  upon  paper  for  better  preservation. 
He  had  been  no  less  student  than  pedestrian  in  the 
field ;  lame  as  he  was,  he  had  footed  his  way  to  many 
a  tall  memorial  of  a  hoary  past,  and  when  still  hardly 
more  than  a  boy,  burrowed  among  the  manuscripts 
of  the  Advocates'  Library  in  Edinburgh,  making 
himself  an  able  antiquary  at  a  time  when  most  youth 
are  idling  or  philandering.  Moreover,  he  was  liim- 
self  the  son  of  a  border  chief  and  knew  minstrelsy 
almost  at  his  nurse's  knee:  and  the  lilt  of  a  ballad 
was  always  like  wine  to  liis  heart.  It  makes  you 
think  of  Sir  Pliilip  Sidney's  splendid  testimony  to 
such  an  influence :  "  I  never  heard  the  old  song  of 
Percy  and  Douglas  that  I  found  not  my  heart  moved 
more  than  with  a  trumpet." 


I3h     MASTERS  OF  TIIK  ENC.LISII   NOVEL 

All  tills  coukl  not  but  tell;  the  inciilents  in  a  book 
like  "  Wavcrley  "  are  unforced:  the  advance  of  the 
story  closely  imitates  Life  in  its  ever-shifting  suc- 
cession of  events:  the  reader  soon  learns  to  trust 
the  author's  faculty  of  invention.  Plot,  story-inter- 
est, is  it  not  the  backbone  of  romantic  fiction?  And 
Scott,  though  perchance  he  may  not  conduct  it  so 
swiftly  as  pleases  the  modem  taste,  may  be  relied  on 
to  furnish  it. 

In  the  earlier  period  up  to  "  Ivanhoc,"  that  fa- 
mous sortie  into  English  history,  belong  such  master- 
pieces as  "  Guy  jNLinncring,"  "  Old  Mortality," 
"Heart  of  Midlothian,"  "The  Bride  of  Lammer- 
moor,"  and  "  Rob  Roy  " ;  a  list  which,  had  he  pro- 
duced nothing  else  would  have  sufficed  to  place  him 
high  among  the  makers  of  romance.  It  is  not  the 
intention  to  analyze  these  great  books  one  by  one — 
a  task  more  fit  for  a  volume  than  a  chapter ;  but 
to  bring  out  those  qualities  of  his  work  which  are 
responsible  for  his  place  in  fiction  and  Influence  in 
the  Novel  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

No  story  of  this  group — nor  of  his  career  as  a 
writer — has  won  more  plaudits  than  "  The  Heart  of 
Midlothian."  Indeed,  were  the  reader  forced  to  the 
unpleasant  necessity  of  choosing  out  of  the  thirty 
stories  which  Scott  left  the  world  the  one  most  de- 
serving of  the  prize,  possibly  the  choice  would  fall 
on  that  superb  portrayal  of  Scotch  life — although 
other  fine  Novels  of  the  quintet  named  would  have 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         135 

their  loyal  friends.  To  study  the  peerlessly  pathetic 
tale  of  Effie  and  Jeanie  Deans  is  to  see  Scott  at 
his  representative  best  and  note  the  headmarks  of 
his  genius :  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  who  finds  nothing 
in  it  can  never  care  for  its  author. 

The  first  thing  to  notice  in  this  novel  of  the  ancient 
Edinburgh  Tolbooth,  this  romance  of  faithful  sister- 
hood, is  its  essential  Scotch  fiber.  The  fact  affects 
the  whole  work.  It  becomes  thereby  simpler,  home- 
lier, more  vernacular:  it  is  a  story  that  is  a  native 
emanation.  The  groundwork  of  plot  too  is  simple, 
vital:  and  moreover,  founded  on  a  true  incident. 
Effie,  the  younger  of  two  sisters,  is  betrayed;  con- 
cerning her  betrayer  there  is  mystery:  she  is  sup- 
posed to  commit  child-murder  to  hide  her  shame: 
a  crime  then  punishable  by  death.  The  story  deals 
with  her  trial,  condemnation  and  final  pardon  and 
happy  marriage  with  her  lover  through  the  noble 
mediation  of  Jeanie,  her  elder  sister. 

In  the  presentation  of  an  earlier  period  in  Scot- 
land, the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
all  punitive  measures  were  primitive  and  the  lawless 
social  elements  seethed  with  restless  discontent,  Scott 
had  a  fine  chance:  and  at  the  very  opening,  in  de- 
scribing the  violent  putting  to  death  of  Captain 
Porteous,  he  skilfully  prepares  the  way  for  the  gen- 
eral picture  to  be  given.  Then,  as  the  story  progresses, 
to  the  supreme  sacrificial  effort  of  Jeanie  in  behalf 
of  her  erring  sister's   life,   gradually,   stroke   upon 


KS()     .MASl'l.US  Ol'    rilK   KXCilJSlI   NOVEL 

.stroke,  the  period  with  its  religious  schisms,  its 
political  passions  and  strong  family  tics,  is  so  il- 
luminated that  while  the  interest  is  centered  upon 
the  Deans  and  their  homel}'  3'ct  tragic  history,  Scotch 
life  in  an  earlier  century  is  envisaged  broadly,  truth- 
fully, in  a  way  never  to  grow  pale  in  memory.  Cam- 
eronian  or  King's  man.  God-fearing  peasant,  lawless 
ruffian  or  Tory  gentleman,  the  characters  are  so 
marshaled  that  without  sides  being  taken  by  the 
writer,  one  feels  the  complexity  of  the  period :  and 
its  uncivil  wildness  is  dramatically  conveyed  as  a 
central  fact  in  the  Tolbooth  with  its  grim  concom- 
itants of  gallows  and  gaping  crowd  of  sightseers 
and  malcontents. 

Scott's  feeling  for  dramatic  situation  is  illustrated 
in  several  scenes  that  stand  out  in  high  relief  after 
a  hundred  details  have  been  forgotten :  one  such  is 
the  trial  scene  in  which  Effic  implores  her  sister 
to  save  her  by  a  lie,  and  Jcanie  in  agony  refuses ; 
the  whole  management  of  it  is  impressively  pictorial. 
Another  is  that  where  Jeanie,  on  the  road  to  Lon- 
don, is  detained  by  the  little  band  of  gypsy-thieves 
and  passes  the  night  with  Madge  Wildfire  in  the 
bam:  it  is  a  scene  Scott  much  relishes  and  makes 
his  reader  enjoy.  And  yet  another,  and  greater, 
is  that  meeting  with  Queen  Caroline  and  Lady  Suf- 
folk when  the  humble  Scotch  girl  is  conducted  by 
the  Duke  of  Argyll  to  the  country  house  and  in 
the  garden  beseeches  pardon  for  her  sister  Effie.     It 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         137 

is  intensely  picturesque,  real  with  many  homely 
touches  which  add  to  the  truth  without  cheapening 
the  effect  of  royalty.  The  gradual  working  out  of 
the  excellent  plot  of  this  romance  to  a  conclusion 
pleasing  to  the  reader  is  a  favorable  specimen  of 
this  romancer's  method  in  story-telling.  There  is 
disproportion  in  the  movement:  it  is  slow  in  the 
first  part,  drawing  together  in  texture  and  gaining 
in  speed  during  its  closing  portion.  Scott  does  not 
hesitate  here,  as  so  often,  to  interrupt  the  story  in 
order  to  interpolate  historical  information,  instead 
of  interweaving  it  atmospherically  with  the  tale  it- 
self. When  Jeanie  is  to  have  her  interview  with 
the  Duke  of  Argyll,  certain  preliminary  pages  must 
be  devoted  to  a  sketch  of  his  career.  A  master  of 
plot  and  construction  to-day  would  have  made  the 
same  story,  so  telling  in  motive,  so  vibrant  with 
human  interest,  more  effective,  so  far  as  its  conduct- 
ment  is  concerned.  Scott  in  his  fiction  felt  it  as 
part  of  his  duty  to  furnish  chronicle-history,  very 
much  as  Shakspere  seems  to  have  done  in  his  so- 
called  chronicle-history  plays ;  whereas  at  present 
the  skilled  artist  feels  no  such  responsibility.  It 
may  be  questioned  if  the  book's  famous  scenes — the 
attempted  breaking  into  the  Tolbooth,  or  the  visit 
of  Jeanie  to  the  Queen — would  not  have  gained 
greatly  from  a  dramatic  point  of  view  had  they  been 
more  condensed;  they  are  badly  languaged,  looking 
to  this  result,  not  swift  enough  for  the  best  effects 


138     MASTKliS  Ol"  THE  KNCiLlSll   NOVEL 

of  (Iraina,  whereas  concc])tion  uiul  framework  are 
lii^lilv  cirniiiatic.  In  a  word,  if  more  carefully  writ- 
ten, fuller  justice  would  have  been  done  the  superb 
theme. 

The  characters  that  crowtl  the  novel  (as,  in  truth, 
they  teem  throughout  the  great  romances)  testify  to 
his  range  and  grasp:  the  Dean  family,  naturally,  in 
the  center.  The  pious,  sturdy  Cameronian  father 
and  the  two  clearly  contrasted  sisters :  Butler,  the 
clergyman  lover ;  the  saddle-maker.  Saddletree,  for  an 
amusing,  long-winded  bore ;  the  quaint  Laird  Dum- 
biedikes ;  the  soldiers  of  fortune,  George  Wilson  and 
his  mate ;  that  other  soldier,  Porteous ;  the  gang  of 
evildoers  with  Madge  in  the  van — a  w'onderful  crea- 
tion, she,  only  surpassed  by  the  better  known  Meg — 
the  high  personages  clustered  about  the  Queen  :  loqua- 
cious Mrs.  Glass,  the  Dean's  kinswoman — one  has  to 
go  back  to  Chaucer  or  Shakspere  for  a  companion 
picture  so  firmly  painted  in  and  composed  on  such 
a  generous  scale. 

Contention  arises  in  a  discussion  of  a  mortal  so 
good  as  Jeanie:  it  would  hardly  be  in  the  artistic 
temper  of  our  time  to  draw  a  peasant  girl  so  well- 
nigh  superhuman  In  her  traits ;  Balzac's  "  Eugenie 
Grandet "  (the  book  appeared  only  fifteen  years 
later),  is  much  nearer  our  time  In  its  conception  of 
the  possibilities  of  human  nature:  Eugenie  docs  not 
strain  credence,  while  Jeanie's  pious  tone  at  times 
seems  out  of  character,  if  not  out  of  humanity.    The 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         139 

striking  contrast  with  Effie  is  in  a  way  to  her  ad- 
vantage: the  weaker  damsel  appears  more  natural, 
more  like  flesh  and  blood.  But  the  final  scene  when, 
after  fleeing*  with  her  high-bom  lover,  she  returns 
to  her  simple  sister  as  a  wife  in  a  higher  grade  of 
society  and  the  sister  agrees  that  their  ways  hence- 
forth must  be  apart — that  scene  for  truth  and 
power  is  one  of  the  master-strokes.  The  reader  finds 
that  Jeanie  Deans  somehow  grows  steadily  in  his 
belief  and  aff^ection:  quietly  but  surely,  a  sense  of 
her  comeliness,  her  truthful  love,  her  quaint  touch  of 
Scotch  canniness,  her  daughterly  duteousness  and 
her  stanch  principle  intensifies  until  it  is  a  pang  to 
bid  her  farewell,  and  the  mind  harks  back  to  her 
with  a  fond  recollection.  Take  her  for  all  in  all, 
Jeanie  Deans  ranks  high  in  Scott's  female  portrait- 
ure: with  Meg  Merillies  in  her  own  station,  and  with 
Lucy  Ashton  and  Di  Vernon  among  those  of  higher 
social  place.  In  her  class  she  is  perhaps  unparal- 
leled in  all  his  fiction.  The  whole  treatment  of  Effie's 
irregular  love  is  a  fine  example  of  Scott's  kindly 
tolerance  (tempered  to  a  certain  extent  by  the  social 
convention  of  his  time)  in  dealing  with  the  sins  of 
human  beings.  He  is  plainly  glad  to  leave  Effie 
an  honestly  married  woman  with  the  right  to  look 
forward  to  happy,  useful  years.  The  story  breeds 
generous  thoughts  on  the  theme  of  young  woman- 
hood: it  handled  the  problem  neither  from  the  su- 
perior altitude  of  the  conventional  moralist  nor  the 


110     MASTKHS  C)l    'rur,  KNC.l.ISlI   NOVEL 

cold  aloofness  of  the  latter-day  realist — Flaubert's 
attitude  iu  ""  Madame  Bovarj." 

"  A  big,  iuipcrfect,  noble  Novel,"  the  thoughtful 
reader  concludes  as  he  closes  it,  and  thinking  back 
to  an  earlier  impression,  finds  that  time  has  not 
loosened  its  jiold. 

And  to  repeat  the  previous  statement:  wliat  is 
true  of  this  is  time  of  all  Scott's  romances.  The 
theme  varies,  the  setting  with  its  wealth  of  local 
color  may  change,  the  period  or  party  differ  with 
the  demands  of  fact.  Scotch  and  English  history 
are  widely  invoked :  now  it  is  the  time  of  the  Georges, 
now  of  the  Stuarts,  now  Elizabethan,  again  back 
to  the  Crusades.  Scott,  in  fact,  ranges  from  Rufus 
the  Red  to  the  year  1800,  and  many  are  the  com- 
plications he  considers  within  that  ample  sweep.  It 
would  be  untrue  to  say  that  his  plots  imitate  each 
other  or  lack  in  invention :  we  have  seen  that  in- 
vention is  one  of  his  virtues.  Nevertheless,  the 
motives  are  few  when  disencumbered  of  their  stately 
historical  trappings :  hunger,  ambition,  love,  hate, 
patriotism,  religion,  the  primary'  passions  and  bosom 
interests  of  mankind  are  those  he  depicts,  because 
they  are  universal.  It  is  his  gift  for  giving  them 
a  particular  dress  In  romance  after  romance  which 
makes  the  result  so  often  satisfactory,  even  splendid. 
Yet,  despite  the  range  of  time  and  grasp  of  Life's 
essentials,  there  is  in  Scott's  intei'pretation  of  hu- 
manity a  certain  lack  which  one  feels  in  comparing 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT        141 

him  with  the  finest  modern  masters :  with  a  Mere- 
dith, a  Turgeneff  or  a  Balzac.  It  is  a  difference 
not  only  of  viewpoint  but  of  synthetic  comprehension 
and  philosophic  penetration.  It  means  that  he  mir- 
rored a  day  less  complex,  less  subtle  and  thoughtful. 
This  may  be  dwelt  upon  and  illustrated  a  little  in 
some  further  considerations  on  his  main  qualities. 

Scott,  like  the  earlier  novelists  in  general,  was  con- 
tent to  depict  character  from  without  rather  than 
from  within :  to  display  it  through  act  and  scene 
instead  of  by  the  probing  analysis  so  characterist- 
ically modern.  This  meant  inevitable  limitations  in 
dealing  with  an  historical  character  or  time.  A  high- 
church  Tory  himself,  a  frank  Jacobite  in  his  lean- 
ings— Taine  declared  he  had  a  feudal  mind — he  nat- 
urally so  composed  a  picture  as  to  reflect  this  pre- 
dilection, making  effects  of  picturesqueness  accord- 
ingly. The  idea  given  of  INIary  Queen  of  Scots 
from  "  The  Abbot  "  is  one  example  of  what  is  meant ; 
that  of  Prince  Charley  in  "  Waverle}^  "  is  another. 
In  a  sense,  however,  the  stories  are  all  the  better  for 
this  obvious  bias.  Where  a  masculine  imagination 
moved  by  warm  affection  seizes  on  an  historic  figure 
the  result  is  sure  to  be  vivid,  at  least ;  and  let  it  be 
repeated  that  Scott  has  in  this  way  re-created  history 
for  the  many.  He  shows  a  sound  artistic  instinct  in 
his  handling  of  historic  personages  relative  to  those 
imaginary:  rarely  letting  them  occupy  the  center 
of  interest,  but  giving  that  place  to  the  creatures  of 


112     MASTERS  Ol     TIIK  ENCilJSII   NOVEL 

his  fiiiu'v,  tlarcl)}'  Jivoiding  tlie  hampering  restric- 
tion of  H  too  dose  following  of  fact.  The  manip- 
ulation of  Richard  C'ctur  dc  Lion  in  "  Ivanhoe " 
is  instructive  with  this  in  mind. 

Wliile  the  lights  and  shadows  of  human  life  are 
duly  hlcnded  in  his  romances,  Scott  had  a  prefer- 
ence for  the  delineation  of  the  gentle,  the  grand 
(or  grandiose),  the  noble  and  the  beautiful:  loving 
the  medieval,  desiring  to  reproduce  the  age  of  chiv- 
alry, he  was  naturally  aristocratic  in  taste,  as  in 
intellect,  though  democratic  by  the  dictates  of  a 
thoroughly  good  heart.  lie  liked  a  pleasant  ending 
— or,  at  least,  believed  in  mitigating  tragedy  by  a 
checker  of  sunlight  at  the  close.  He  had  little  use 
for  the  degenerate  types  of  mankind:  certainly  none 
for  degeneracy  for  its  own  sake,  or  because  of  a  kind 
of  scientific  interest  in  its  workings.  Nor  did  he 
conceive  of  the  mission  of  fiction  as  being  primarily 
instructional:  nor  set  too  high  a  value  on  a  novel 
as  a  lesson  in  life — although  at  times  (read  the  moral 
tag  to  "  The  Heart  of  ^Midlothian  ")  he  speaks  in 
quite  the  preacher's  tone  of  the  improvement  to  be 
got  from  the  teaching  of  the  tale.  Critics  to-day 
are,  I  think,  inclined  to  place  undue  emphasis  upon 
■what  they  regard  as  Scott's  failure  to  take  the  moral 
obligations  of  fiction  seriously:  they  confuse  his 
preaching  and  his  practice.  Whatever  he  declared 
in  his  letters  or  Journal,  the  novels  themselves,  read 
in  the  light  of  current  methods,  certainly  leave  an 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         143 

old-fashioned  taste  on  the  palate,  because  of  their 
moralizings  and  avowments  of  didactic  purpose. 
The  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  this  general 
attitude  can  be  easily  understood:  the  loss  in  philo- 
sophic grasp  is  made  up  in  healthiness  of  tone  and 
pleasantness  of  appeal.  One  recognizes  such  an 
author  as,  above  all,  human  and  hearty.  The  re- 
serves and  delicacies  of  Anglo-Saxon  fiction  are  here, 
of  course,  in  full  force:  and  a  doctored  view  of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  the  result,  as  it  is  in  Tennyson's 
"  Idylls  of  the  King."  A  sufficient  answer  is  that 
it  is  not  Scott's  business  to  set  us  right  as  to  medi- 
evalism, but  rather  to  use  it  for  the  imaginative  pur- 
poses of  pleasure.  The  frank  intrusion  of  the  author 
himself  into  the  body  of  the  page  or  in  the  way  of 
footnotes  is  also  disturbing,  judged  by  our  later 
standards :  but  was  carried  on  with  much  charm  by 
Thackeray  in  the  mid-century,  to  reappear  at  its  end 
in  the  pages  of  Du  Maurier. 

In  the  more  technical  qualifications  of  the  story- 
maker's  art^  Scott  compensated  in  the  more  mascu- 
line virtues  for  what  he  lacked  in  the  feminine.  Pos- 
sessing less  of  finesse,  subtlety  and  painstaking  than 
some  who  were  to  come,  he  excelled  in  sweep,  move- 
ment and  variety,  as  well  as  in  a  kind  of  largeness 
of  effect :  "  the  big  bow-wow  business,"  to  use  his  own 
humorously  descriptive  phrase  when  he  was  compar- 
ing himself  with  Jane  Austen,  to  his  own  disad- 
vantage.     And  it  is  these  very  qualities  that  endear 


Ut     MASTKHS  or  THE  ENGLISH  xNOVEL 

him  to  the  goncral  aiul  keep  his  memories  green: 
making  '*  Ivanhoe  ''  ami  *'  Kenilworth  "  still  useful 
for  school  texts — uniiapj>y  fate !  Still,  this  means 
that  he  always  had  a  story  to  tell  and  told  it  with 
the  flow  and  fervor  and  the  instinctive  coherence  of 
the  story-teller  born,  not  made. 

When  tlie  fortunes  of  his  fictivc  folk  were  settled, 
this  novelist,  always  more  interested  in  characters 
than  in  the  plot  which  must  conduct  them,  often 
loses  interest  and  his  books  end  more  or  less  lamely, 
ov  with  obvious  conventionalit3\  Anything  to  close 
it  up,  you  feel.  But  of  action  and  incident,  scenes 
that  live  and  situations  with  stage  value,  one  of 
Scott's  typical  fictions  has  enough  to  furnish  the 
stock  in  trade  for  life  of  many  later-day  romanticists 
who  feebly  follow  in  his  wake.  He  has  a  special 
skill  in  connecting  the  comparatively  small  private 
involvement,  which  is  the  kernel  of  a  story,  with  im- 
portant public  matters,  so  that  they  seem  part  of 
the  larger  movements  or  historic  occurrences  of  the 
world.  Dignity  and  body  are  gained  for  the  tale 
thereby. 

In  the  all-important  matter  of  characterization, 
Scott  yields  the  palm  to  very  few  modem  masters. 
Merely  to  think  of  the  range,  variety  and  actuality 
of  his  creations  is  to  feel  the  blood  move  quicker. 
From  figures  of  historic  and  regal  importance — Rich- 
ard, Elizabeth,  Mary — to  the  pure  coinage  of  im- 
agination— Dandy      Dinmont,      Dugald      Dalgetty, 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         145 

Dominie  Sampson,  Rebecca,  Lucy,  Di  Vernon  and 
Jeanie — how  the  names  begin  to  throng  and  what 
a  motley  yet  welcome  company  is  assembled  in  the 
assizes  where  this  romancer  sits  to  mete  out  fate 
to  those  within  the  wide  bailiwick  of  his  imagination ! 
This  central  gift  he  possessed  with  the  princes  of 
story-making.  It  is  also  probable  that  of  the  im- 
aginative writers  of  English  speech,  nobody  but 
Shakspere  and  Dickens — and  Dickens  alone  among 
fellow  fiction-makers — has  enriched  the  workaday 
world  with  so  many  people,  men  and  women,  whose 
speech,  doings  and  fates  are  familiar  and  matter  for 
common  reference.  And  this  is  the  gift  of  gifts. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  Scott's  heroes  and  heroines 
(especially,  perhaps,  the  former)  are  la}'^  figures, 
not  convincing,  vital  creations.  There  is  a  touch 
of  truth  in  it.  His  striking  and  successful  figures 
are  not  walking  gentlemen  and  leading  ladies.  When, 
for  example,  you  recall  "  Guy  Mannering,"  you  do 
not  think  of  the  young  gentleman  of  that  name, 
but  of  Meg  Merillies  as  she  stands  in  the  night  in  high 
relief  on  a  bank,  weather-beaten  of  face  and  wild  of 
dress,  hurling  her  anathema :  "  Ride  your  ways, 
Ellangowan  !  "  In  characters  rather  of  humble  pathos 
like  Jeanie  Deans  or  of  eccentric  humor  like  Dominie 
Sampson,  Scott  is  at  his  best.  He  confessed  to  mis- 
liking  his  heroes  and  only  warming  up  to  full  creative 
activity  over  his  more  unconventional  types:  border 
chiefs,  buccaneers,  freebooters  and  smugglers.     "  Mj 


I  Hi    MASTKKS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

rogue  always,  in  spite  of  inc,  turns  out  my  hero," 
is  his  wliinisical  coniphiint. 

But  tliis  ilocs  not  apply  in  full  force  to  his  women. 
Di  Vernon — who  does  not  recall  that  scene  where 
from  horseback  in  the  moonlight  she  bends  to  her 
lover,  parting  from  him  with  the  words :  "  Farewell, 
Frank,  forever !  There  is  a  gulf  between  us — a  gulf 
of  absolute  perdition.  Where  we  go,  you  must  not 
follow ;  what  we  do,  you  must  not  share  in — farewell, 
be  happy !  "  That  is  the  very  accent  of  Romance, 
in  its  true  and  proper  setting:  not  to  be  staled  by 
time  nor  custom. 

Nor  will  it  do  to  claim  that  he  succeeds  with  his 
Deans  and  fails  with  women  of  regal  type:  his  Marys 
and  Elizabeth  Tudors.  In  such  portrayals  it  seems 
to  me  he  is  pre-eminently  fine:  one  cannot  under- 
stand the  critics  who  see  in  such  creations  mere  stock 
figures  supplied  by  history  not  breathed  upon  with 
the  breath  of  life.  Scott  had  a  definite  talent  for 
the  stage-setting  of  royalty:  that  is  one  of  the  rea- 
sons for  the  popularity  of  "  Kenilworth."  It  is, 
however,  a  true  discrimination  which  finds  more  of 
life  and  variety  in  Scott's  principal  women  than  in 
his  men  of  like  position.  But  his  Rob  Roys,  Hat- 
teraicks  and  Dalgettys  justify  all  praise  and  help 
to  explain  that  title  of  Wizard  of  the  North  which 
he  won  and  wore. 

In  nothing  is  Scott  stronger  than  in  his  environ- 
ments, his  devices  for  atmosphere.      This  he  largely 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT         147 

secures  by  means  of  description  and  with  his  wealth 
of  material,  does  not  hesitate  to  take  his  time  in 
building  up  his  effects.  Perhaps  the  most  common 
criticism  of  him  heard  to-day  refers  to  his  slow  move- 
ment. Superabundance  of  matter  is  accompanied 
by  prolixity  of  style,  with  a  result  of  breeding  im- 
patience in  the  reader,  particularly  the  young.  Boys 
and  girls  at  present  do  not  offer  Scott  the  unreserved 
affection  once  his  own,  because  he  now  seems  an 
author  upon  whom  to  exercise  the  gentle  art  of  skip- 
ping. Enough  has  been  said  as  to  Scott's  lack  of 
modern  economy  of  means.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
declare  that  this  juvenile  reluctance  to  his  leisurely 
manner  stands  for  total  depravity.  The  young 
reader  of  the  present  time  (to  say  nothing  of  the 
reader  more  mature)  is  trained  to  swifter  methods, 
and  demands  them.  At  the  same  time,  it  needs  to 
be  asserted  that  much  of  the  impressiveness  of  Scott 
would  be  lost  were  his  method  and  manner  other  than 
they  are:  nor  will  it  do  harm  to  remind  ourselves 
that  we  all  arc  in  danger  of  losing  our  power  of 
sustained  and  consecutive  attention  in  relation  to 
literature,  because  of  the  scrap-book  tendency  of  so 
much  modern  reading.  On  the  center-table,  cheap 
magazines ;  on  the  stage,  vaudeville — these  are  habits 
that  sap  the  ability  for  slow,  ruminative  pleasure  in 
the  arts.  Luckily,  they  are  not  the  only  modem 
manifestation,  else  were  we  in  a  parlous  state,  in- 
deed!     The  trouble  with  Scott,  then,  may  be  re- 


lis     MASTERS  OF  TlIK  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

solved  in  part  into  a  trouble  with   tlie  modern   folk 
who  read  him. 

When  one  undertakes  tiic  thankless  task  of  ana- 
lyzing coldly  and  critically  the  style  of  Scott,  the 
faults  arc  plain  enough.  He  constantly  uses  two 
adjectives  or  three  in  parallel  construction  where 
one  would  do  the  work  better.  The  construction 
of  his  sentences  loses  largely  the  pleasing  variation 
of  a  richly  articulated  system  by  careless  punctua- 
tion and  a  tendency  to  make  parallel  clauses  where 
subordinate  relations  should  be  expressed.  The  un- 
necessary copula  stars  his  pages.  Although  his 
manner  in  narration  rises  with  his  subject  and  he 
may  be  justly  called  a  picturesque  and  forceful 
writer,  he  is  seldom  a  distinguished  one.  One  does 
not  turn  to  him  for  the  inevitable  word  or  phrase, 
or  for  those  that  startle  by  reason  of  felicity  and 
fitness.  These  strictures  apply  to  his  descriptive 
and  narrative  parts,  not  to  the  dialogue:  for  there, 
albeit  sins  of  difFuseness  and  verbosity  are  to  be 
noted — and  these  are  modified  by  the  genial  human- 
ity they  embody — he  is  one  of  the  great  masters. 
His  use  of  the  Scotch  dialect  adds  indefinitely  to 
his  attraction  and  native  smack:  racy  humor,  sly 
wit,  canny  logic,  heartful  sympathy — all  are  con- 
veyed by  the  folk  medium.  All  subsequent  users  of 
the  people-speech  pay  toll  to  Walter  Scott.  Small 
courtesy  should  be  extended  to  those  who  complain 
that  these  idioms  make  hard  reading.      Never  does 


MODERN  ROMANTICISM:  SCOTT        149 

Scott  give  us  dialect  for  its  own  sake,  but  always 
for  the  sake  of  a  closer  revelation  of  the  human 
heart — dialect's  one  justification. 

At  its  worst,  Scott's  style  may  fairly  be  called 
ponderous,  loose,  monotonous :  at  its  finest,  the  ade- 
quate instrument  of  a  natural  story-teller  who  is 
most  at  home  when,  emerging  from  his  longueur,  he 
writes  of  grand  things  in  the  grand  manner. 

Thus,  Sir  Walter  Scott  defined  the  Romance  for 
modem  fiction,  gave  it  the  authority  of  his  genius 
and  extended  the  gamut  of  the  Novel  by  showing  that 
the  method  of  the  realist,  the  awakening  of  interest 
in  the  actualities  of  familiar  character  and  life, 
could  be  more  broadly  applied.  He  opposed  the 
realist  in  no  true  sense:  but  indicated  how,  without 
a  lapse  of  art  or  return  to  outworn  machinery, 
justice  might  yet  be  done  to  the  more  stirring,  large, 
heroic  aspects  of  the  world  of  men :  a  world  which 
exists  and  clamors  to  be  expressed:  a  world  which 
readers  of  healthy  taste  are  perennially  interested  in, 
nay,  sooner  or  later,  demand  to  be  shown.  His 
fiction,  whether  we  award  it  the  somewhat  grudging 
recognition  of  Carlyle  or  with  Ruskin  regard  its 
maker  as  the  one  great  novelist  of  English  race, 
must  be  deemed  a  precious  legacy,  one  of  literature's 
most  honorable  ornaments — especially  desirable  in 
a  day  so  apparently  plain  and  utilitarian  as  our 
own,  eschewing  ornament  and  perchance  for  that 
reason  needing  it  all  the  more. 


CHAPTER  VII 
FRENCH  INFLUENCE 

In  the  first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century  Eng- 
Hsli  fiction  stood  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  Should 
it  follow  Scott  and  the  romance,  or  Jane  Austen 
and  the  Novel  of  cver^'day  life?  Should  it  adopt 
that  form  of  story-making  which  puts  stress  on 
action  and  plot  and  is  objective  in  its  method, 
roaming  all  lands  and  times  for  its  material;  or, 
dealing  with  the  familiar  average  of  contemporary 
society,  should  it  emphasize  character  analysis  and 
choose  the  subjective  realm  of  psychology  for  its 
peculiar  domain?  The  pen  dropped  from  the 
stricken  hand  of  Scott  in  1832;  in  that  year  a  young 
parliamentary  reporter  in  London  was  already  writ- 
ing certain  lively,  closely  observed  sketches  of  the 
town,  and  four  years  later  they  were  to  be  collected 
and  published  under  the  title  of  "  Sketches  by  Boz," 
while  the  next  year  that  incomparable  extravaganza, 
"  The  Pickwick  Papers,"  was  to  go  to  an  eager  pub- 
lic. English  fiction  had  decided:  the  Novel  was 
to  conquer  the  romance  for  nearly  a  century.  It 
was  a  victory  which  to  the  present  day  has  been 
a.  dominant  influence  in   story-making;  establishing 

150 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  151 

a  tendency  which,  until  Stevenson  a  few  years  since, 
with  the  gaiety  of  the  inveterate  boy,  cried  up 
Romance  once  more,  bade  fair  to  sweep  all  before 
it. 

Before  tracing  this  vigorous  development  of  the 
Novel  of  Reality  with  Dickens,  Thackeray  and  Eliot 
(to  name  three  great  leaders),  it  is  important  to 
get  an  idea  of  the  growth  on  French  soil  which  was 
so  deeply  influential  upon  English  as  well  as  upon 
other  modern  fiction.  Nothing  is  more  certain  in 
literary  evolution  than  the  fact  that  the  French 
Novel  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  molded  and  de- 
fined modem  fiction,  thus  repaying  an  earlier  debt 
owed  the  English  pioneers,  Richardson  and  Fielding. 
English  fiction  of  our  own  generation  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  native  variation  on  a  French  model: 
in  fact,  the  fictionists  of  Europe  and  the  English- 
speaking  lands,  with  whatever  divergencies  personal 
or  national,  have  derived  in  large  measure  from  the 
Gaul  the  technique,  the  point  of  view  and  the  choice 
of  theme  which  characterizes  the  French  Novel 
from  Stendhal  to  Balzac,  from  Zola  to  Guy  de 
Maupassant. 


The  name  of  Henri  Bcylc,  known  to  literature 
under  the  sobriquet  of  Stendhal,  has  a  meaning 
in  the  development  of  the  modern  type  of  fiction  out 
of  proportion  to  the  intrinsic  value  of  his  stories. 


i:>i2     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

lie  was,  of  course,  far  surpassed  by  mightier  fol- 
lowers like  Balzac,  Flaubert  and  Zola;  jet  his  sig- 
nificance lies  in  tlie  very  fact  that  the}'  were  fol- 
lowers. His  is  all  the  merit  pertaining  to  the  feat 
of  introducing  the  Novel  of  psychic  analysis:  of  that 
persistent  and  increasingly  unpleasant  bearing-do^vn 
upon  the  darker  facts  of  personality.  Hence  his 
"  Rouge  et  Noir,"  dated  1830  and  typical  of  his 
aim  and  method,  is  in  a  sense  an  epoch-making 
book. 

Balzac  was  at  the  same  time  producing  the  earlier 
studies  to  culminate  in  that  Human  Comedy  which 
was  to  stand  as  the  chief  accomplishment  of  his 
nation  in  the  literature  of  fiction.  But  Stendhal, 
sixteen  years  older,  began  to  print  first  and  to  him 
falls  the  glory  of  innovation.  Balzac  gives  full 
praise  to  his  predecessor  in  his  essay  on  Beyle,  and 
his  letters  contain  frequent  references  to  the  debt 
he  owed  that  curious  bundle  of  fatuities,  inconsist- 
encies and  brilliancies,  the  author  of  "  The  Char- 
treuse de  Parme."  Later,  Zola  calls  him  "  the  father 
of  us  all,"  meaning  of  the  naturalistic  school  of 
which  Zola  himself  was  High  Priest.  Beyle's  busi- 
ness was  the  analysis  of  soul  states:  an  occupation 
familiar  enough  in  these  times  of  Hardy,  Meredith 
and  Hcnr}'  James.  He  held  several  posts  of  im- 
portance under  Napoleon,  worshiped  that  leader, 
loved  Italy  as  his  birthplace,  loved  England  too,  and 
tried  Lo  show  in  his  novels  the  result  of  the  inactive 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  153 

Restoration  upon  a  generation  trained  by  Napoleon 
to  action,  violence,  ambition  and  passion. 

Read  to-day,  "  Le  Rouge  et  Noir,"  which  it  is 
sufficient  to  consider  for  our  purposes,  seems  some- 
what slow  in  movement,  struggling  in  construction, 
meticulous  in  manner.  At  times,  its  intermina- 
bility  recalls  "  Clarissa  Harlowe,"  but  it  possesses 
the  traits  which  were  to  mark  the  coming  school  of 
novel-writing  in  France  and  hence  in  the  modem 
world:  to  wit,  freedom  in  dealing  with  love  in  its 
irregular  relation,  the  tendency  towards  tragedy, 
and  that  subtlety  of  handling  which  makes  the  main 
interest  to  depend  upon  motive  and  thought  rather 
than  upon  the  external  action  itself,  "  Thus  con- 
science doth  make  cowards  of  us  all," — that  might 
be  the  motto.  The  young  quasi-hero  is  Julian,  an 
ambitious  worldling  of  no  family,  and  his  use  of  the 
Church  as  a  means  of  promotion,  his  amours  with 
several  women  and  his  death  because  of  his  love 
for  one  of  them,  are  traced  with  a  kind  of  tortuous 
revelation  of  the  inner  workings  of  the  human  heart 
which  in  its  way  declares  genius  in  the  writer:  and 
which  certainly  makes  a  work  disillusioning  of  hu- 
man nature.  Its  more  external  aspect  of  a  study 
of  the  politic  Church  and  State,  of  the  rivalry  be- 
tween the  reds  and  the  blacks  of  the  state  religion, 
is  entirely  secondary  to  this  greater  purpose  and 
result:  here,  for  the  first  time  at  full  length,  a  writer 
shows    the    possibility    of    that    realistic    portrayal 


lot     MASTKHS  OF    THE   ENGLISH   NOVEL 

sternly  carried  through,  no  matter  how  rlestructive 
of  romantic  preconceptions  of  men  and  women.  It 
is  the  method  of  Richardson  flowering  in  a  time  of 
greater  freedom  and  more  cynical  questioning  of  the 
gods. 

n 

But  giving  Stendhal  his  full  mint  and  cummin 
of  praise,  he  yet  was  but  the  forerunner  of  a  mightier 
man.  Undoubtedly,  he  prepared  the  soil  and  was 
a  necessary  link  in  the  chain  of  development  where- 
with fiction  was  to  forge  itself  an  unbreakable  se- 
quence of  strength.  Balzac  was  to  put  out  his  lesser 
light,  as  indeed  the  refulgence  of  his  genius  was  to 
overshine  all  French  fiction,  before  and  since.  It 
would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  major 
English  novelists  of  the  middle  nineteenth  century 
were  consciously  disciples  of  Balzac — for  something 
greater  even  than  he  moved  them ;  the  spirit  of  the 
Time.  But  it  is  quite  within  bounds  to  say  that 
of  all  modern  fiction  he  is  the  leader  and  shaper. 
Without  him,  his  greatest  native  follower,  Zola,  is 
inconceivable.  He  gathers  up  into  himself  and  ex- 
presses at  its  fullest  all  that  was  latent  in  the  strik- 
ing modern  growth  whose  banner-cry  was  Truth, 
and  whose  method  was  that  of  the  social  scientist. 
Here  was  a  man  who,  early  in  his  career,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Novel,  deliberately 
planned  to  constitute  himself  the  social  historian  of 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  155 

his  epoch  and  race:  and  who,  in  upwards  of  a  hun- 
dred remarkable  pieces  of  fiction  in  Novel  form  exe- 
cuted that  plan  in  such  fulness  that  his  completed 
work  stands  not  only  as  a  monument  of  industry, 
but  as  perhaps  the  most  inspiring  example  of  liter- 
ary synthesis  in  the  history  of  letters.  In  bigness 
of  conception  and  of  construction — let  alone  the 
way  in  which  the  work  was  performed — the  Human 
Comedy  is  awe-begetting ;  it  drives  one  to  Shakspere 
for  like  largeness  of  scale.  Such  a  performance, 
ordered  and  directed  to  a  foreseen  end,  is  unique  in 
literature. 

As  Balzac  thus  gave  birth,  with  a  fiery  fecundity 
of  invention,  to  book  after  book  of  the  long  list  of 
Novels  that  make  up  his  story  of  life,  there  took 
shape  in  his  mind  a  definite  intention:  to  become  the 
Secretary  of  an  Age  of  which  he  declared  society  to 
be  the  historian.  He  wished  to  exhibit  man  in  his 
species  as  he  was  to  be  seen  in  the  France  of  the 
novelist's  era,  just  as  a  naturalist  aims  to  study 
beast-kind,  segregating  them  into  classes  for  zoo- 
logical investigation.  Later,  Balzac's  great  succes- 
sor (as  we  shall  see)  applied  this  analogy  with  more 
rigid  insistence  upon  the  scientific  method  which 
should  obtain  in  all  literary  study.  The  survey 
proposed  covered  a  period  of  about  half  a  century 
and  included  the  Republic,  the  Empire  and  the  Re- 
storation: it  ranged  through  all  classes  and  con- 
ditions  of  men   with  no   appearance   of  prejudice, 


156    -MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

preference  or  parti-pris  (this  is  one  of  the  marvels 
of  Balzac),  thus  gaining  the  immense  advantage  of 
an  apparently  complete  and  catholic  comprehension 
of  the  human  show.  Of  all  modern  novelists,  Balzac 
is  the  one  whose  work  seems  like  life  instead  of  an 
opinion  of  life;  he  has  the  objectivity  of  Shakspere. 
Even  a  Tolstoy  set  beside  him  seems  limited. 

This  idea  of  a  plan  was  not  crystallized  into  the 
famous  title  given  to  his  collective  works — La 
Comedie  Humaine — until  18-i2,  when  but  eight  years 
of  life  remained  to  him.  But  four  j^ears  earlier 
it  had  been  mentioned  in  a  letter,  and  when  Balzac 
was  only  a  little  over  thirty,  at  a  time  when  his 
better-known  books  were  just  beginning  to  appear, 
he  had  signified  his  sense  of  an  inclusive  scheme  by 
giving  such  a  running  title  to  a  group  of  his  stories 
as  the  familiar  "  Scenes  from  Private  Life " — to 
which,  in  due  course,  were  added  other  designations 
for  the  various  parts  of  the  great  plan.  The  en- 
cyclopedic survey  was  never  fully  completed,  but 
enough  was  done  to  justify  all  the  laudation  that 
belongs  to  a  Herculean  task  and  the  exploitation  of 
an  almost  incredible  amount  of  human  data.  As 
for  finishing  the  work,  the  failure  hardly  detracts 
from  its  value  or  affects  its  place  in  literature. 
Neither  Spenser's  "  Faery  Queen  "  nor  Wordsworth's 
"  The  Excursion  "  was  completed,  and,  per  contra, 
it  were  as  well  for  Browning  if  "  The  Ring  and  the 
Book "    had    not   been.       In    all    such    cases    of    so- 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  157 

called  incompletion,  one  recognizes  Hercules  from 
the  feet.  Had  this  mighty  story-teller  and  student 
of  humanity  carried  out  his  full  intention  there  would 
have  been  nearly  150  pieces  of  fiction;  of  the  plan- 
on-paper  he  actually  completed  ninety-seven,  two- 
thirds  of  the  whole,  and  enough  to  illustrate  the  con- 
ception. And  it  must  be  remembered  that  Balzac 
died  at  fifty.  One  result  of  the  incompletion,  as 
Brunetiere  has  pointed  out,  is  to  give  disproportion- 
ate treatment  to  certain  phases  of  life,  to  the  mili- 
tary, for  instance,  for  which  Balzac  has  twenty-four 
stories  on  his  list,  whereas  only  two,  "  The  Chouans  '* 
and  "  A  Passion  in  the  Desert,"  were  executed.  But 
surely,  sufficient  was  done,  looking  to  the  comedy 
as  a  whole,  to  force  us  to  describe  the  execution  as 
well  as  the  conception  as  gigantic.  Had  the  work 
been  more  mechanically  pushed  to  its  end  for  the 
exact  plan's  sake,  the  perfection  of  scheme  might 
have  been  attained  at  the  expense  of  vitality  and 
inspiration.  Ninety-seven  pieces  of  fiction,  the  ma- 
jority of  them  elaborate  novels,  the  whole  involving 
several  thousand  characters,  would  be  impressive  in 
any  case,  but  when  they  come  from  an  author  who 
marvelously  reproduces  his  time  and  country,  creat- 
ing his  scenes  in  a  way  to  afford  us  a  sense  of  the 
complexity  of  life — its  depth  and  height,  its  beauty, 
terror  and  mystery — we  can  but  hail  him  as  Master. 
And  in  spite  of  the  range  and  variety  in  Balzac's 
unique  product,  it  has  an  effect  of  unity  based  upon 


158     MASTERS  Ol    THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

a  sense  of  social  solidarity.  He  conceives  it  his 
duty  to  present  the  unity  of  society  in  his  day,  what- 
ever its  apparent  class  and  other  divergencies.  He 
would  show  that  men  anti  women  are  members  of 
the  one  body  social,  interacting  upon  each  otlicr  in 
manifold  relations  and  so  producing  the  dramas  of 
earth;  each  story  plays  its  part  in  this  general  aim, 
illustrating  the  social  laws  and  reactions,  even  as 
the  human  beings  themselves  play  their  parts  in  the 
world.  In  this  way  Balzac's  Human  Comedy  is  an 
organism,  however  much  it  may  fall  short  of  sym- 
metry and  completion. 

In  the  outline  of  the  plan  we  find  him  separating 
his  studies  into  three  groups  or  classes:  The  Studies 
of  Manners,  the  Philosophical  Studies,  and  the  Ana- 
lytic Studies.  In  the  first  division  were  placed  the 
related  groups  of  scenes  of  Private  life.  Provincial 
life,  Parisian  life.  Political  life,  Military  life  and 
Country  life.  It  was  his  desire,  as  he  says  in  a 
letter  to  Madame  Hanska,  to  have  the  group  of 
studies  of  Manners  "  represent  all  social  effects  " ; 
in  the  philosophic  studies  the  causes  of  those  effects : 
the  one  exhibits  individualities  typified,  the  other, 
types  individualized :  and  in  the  Analytic  Studies  he 
searches  for  the  principles.  "  Manners  are  the  per- 
formance; the  causes  are  the  wings  and  the  machin- 
ery. The  principles — they  are  the  author.  .  .  . 
Thus  man,  society  and  humanity  will  be  described, 
judged,  analyzed  without  repetition  and  in  a  work 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  159 

which  will  be,  as  it  were,  '  The  Thousand  and  One 
Nights  '  of  the  west." 

The  scheme  thus  categorically  laid  down  sounds 
rather  dry  and  formal,  nor  is  it  too  easy  to  under- 
stand. But  all  trouble  vanishes  when  once  the  Hu- 
man Comedy  itself,  in  any  example  of  it,  is  taken 
up ;  you  launch  upon  the  great  swollen  tide  of  life 
and  are  carried  irresistibly  along. 

It  is  plain  that  with  an  author  of  Balzac's  pro- 
ductive powers,  any  attempt  to  convey  an  idea  of 
his  quality  must  perforce  confine  itself  to  a  few 
representative  specimens.  A  few  of  them,  rightly 
chosen,  give  a  fair  notion  of  his  general  interpreta- 
tion.     What  then  are  some  illustrative  creations? 

In  the  case  of  most  novelists,  although  of  first 
rank,  it  is  not  as  a  rule  difficult  to  define  their 
class  and  name  their  tendency:  their  temperaments 
and  beliefs  are  so-and-so,  and  they  readily  fall  under 
the  designation  of  realist  or  romanticist,  pessimist, 
or  optimist,  student  of  character  or  maker  of  plots. 
This  is,  in  a  sense,  impossible  with  Balzac.  The 
more  he  be  read,  the  harder  to  detect  his  bias :  he 
seems,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  say,  more  like  a 
natural  force  than  a  human  mind.  Persons  read 
two  or  three — perhaps  half  a  dozen  of  his  books — 
and  then  prate  glibly  of  his  dark  view,  his  predilec- 
tion for  the  base  in  mankind;  when  fifty  fictions 
have  been  assimilated,  it  will  be  realized  that  but  a 
phase  of  Balzac  had  been  seen. 


UiO    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

When  the  passion  of  creation,  the  birth-throes  of 
a  novel  were  on  him,  he  became  so  immersed  in  the 
aspect  of  life  he  was  ilepicting  that  he  saw,  felt, 
knew  naught  else :  externally  this  obsession  was  ex- 
pressed by  his  way  of  life  and  work  while  the  story 
was  growing  under  his  hand:  his  recluse  habits,  his 
monkish  abstention  from  worldly  indulgences,  the 
abnormal  night  hours  of  activity,  the  loss  of  flesh, 
so  that  the  robust  man  who  went  into  the  guarded 
chamber  came  out  at  the  end  of  six  weeks  the  shadow 
of  himself. 

As  a  consequence  of  the  consecration  to  the  par- 
ticular task  (as  if  it  embraced  the  one  view  of  exist- 
ence), the  reader  perhaps  experiences  a  shock  of 
surprise  in  passing  from  "  The  Country  Doctor  "  to 
"  Pere  Goriot."  But  the  former  is  just  as  truly 
part  of  his  interpretation  as  the  latter.  A  dozen 
fictions  can  be  drawn  from  the  body  of  his  produc- 
tion which  portray  humanity  in  its  more  beautiful, 
idealistic  manifestations.  Books  like  "  The  Country 
Doctor "  and  "  Eugenie  Grandet  "  are  not  alone  in 
the  list.  And  how  beautiful  both  are !  "  The  Coun- 
try Doctor "  has  all  the  idyllic  charm  of  setting 
which  a  poetic  interpretation  of  life  in  a  rural  com- 
munity can  give.  Not  alone  Nature,  but  human 
nature  is  hymned.  The  kindly  old  physician,  whose 
model  is  the  great  Phj'^sician  himself,  is  like  Chau- 
cer's good  parson,  an  unforgettable  vision  of  the 
higher  potentialities  of  the  race.      Such  a  novel  de- 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  161 

serves  to  be  called  quite  as  truly  romance  and  prose 
poem,  save  that  Balzac's  vraisemblance,  his  gift  for 
photographic  detail  and  the  contemporaneousness  of 
the  setting,  make  it  modern.  And  thus  with  "  Eu- 
genie Grandet  "  the  same  method  applied  in  "  The 
Country  Doctor"  to  the  study  of  a  noble  profession 
in  a  rural  atmosphere,  is  here  used  for  the  portrait 
of  a  good  woman  whose  entourage  is  again  that  of 
simple,  natural  conditions.  There  is  more  of  light 
and  shade  in  the  revelation  of  character  because 
Eugenie's  father,  the  miser — a  masterly  sketch — 
furnishes  a  dark  background  for  her  radiant  per- 
sonality. But  the  same  effect  is  produced,  that  of 
throwing  into  bold  relief  the  sweet,  noble,  high  and 
pure  in  our  common  humanity.  And  in  this  case  it 
is  a  girl  of  humble  station  far  removed  from  the 
shams  and  shameful  passions  of  the  town.  The 
conventional  contrast  would  be  to  present  in  another 
novel  some  woman  of  the  city  as  foul  as  this  daughter 
of  Grandet  is  fair.  Not  so  Balzac.  He  is  too  broad 
an  observer  of  humanity,  and  as  artist  too  much  the 
master  for  such  cheap  effects  of  chiaroscuro.  In 
"  The  Duchess  De  Langeais  "  he  sets  his  central  char- 
acter amidst  the  frivolities  of  fashion  and  behold, 
yet  another  beautiful  type  of  the  sex !  As  Richard- 
son drew  his  Pamela  and  Clarissa,  so  Balzac  his 
Eugenie  and  the  Duchess :  and  let  us  not  refrain 
from  carrying  out  the  comparison,  and  add,  how 
feeble    seems     the     Englishman     in     creation     when 


162     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

one  tliinks  of  tlic  half"  a  luindrcd  other  female 
figures,  good  and  bad,  higli  and  low,  distinctly 
etched  upon  the  memory  by  the  mordant  pen  of 
the  Frenchman ! 

Then  if  we  turn  to  that  great  tragedy  of  family, 
"  Pere  Goriot,"  the  change  is  complete.  Now  are  we 
plunged  into  an  atmosphere  of  greed,  jealousy,  un- 
cleanliness  and  hate,  all  steeped  in  the  bourgeois  street 
air  of  Paris.  In  this  tale  of  tliankless  daughters 
and  their  piteous  old  father,  all  the  hideousness  pos- 
sible to  the  ties  of  kin  is  uncovered  to  our  frightened 
yet  fascinated  eye.  The  plot  holds  us  in  a  vise; 
to  recall  Madame  Vautrin's  boarding  house  is  to 
shudder  at  the  sights  and  smells !  Compare  it  with 
Dickens'  Mrs.  Todgers,  and  once  and  for  all  you 
have  the  difference  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and 
Celtic  genius. 

Suppose,  now,  the  purpose  be  to  reveal  not  a  group 
or  community,  but  ons  human  soul,  a  woman's  this 
time :  read  "  A  Woman  of  Thirty "  and  see  how 
the  novelist, — for  the  first  time — and  one  is  in- 
clined to  add,  for  all  time, — has  pierced  through  the 
integuments  and  reached  the  very  quick  of  psycho- 
logic exposure.  It  is  often  said  that  he  has  created 
the  type  of  young-old,  or  old-3'oung  woman :  mean- 
ing that  before  him,  novelists  overlooked  the  fact  that 
a  woman  of  this  age,  maturer  in  experience  and  still 
ripe  in  physical  charms,  is  really  of  intense  social 
attraction,  richly  worth  stud3\      But  this  is  because 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  163 

Balzac  knows  that  all  souls  are  interesting,  if  only 
we  go  beneath  the  surface.  The  only  work  of  modem 
fiction  which  seems  to  me  so  nakedly  to  lay  open  the 
recesses  of  the  human  spirit  as  does  "  A  Woman  of 
Thirty  "  is  Meredith's  "  The  Egoist  " ;  and,  of  course, 
master  against  master,  Balzac  is  easily  the  superior, 
since  the  English  author's  wonderful  book  is  so  man- 
nered and  grotesque.  Utter  sympathy  is  shown  in 
these  studies  of  femininity,  whether  the  subject 
be  a  harlot,  a  saint  or  a  patrician  of  the  Grande 
Monde. 

If  the  quest  be  for  the  handling  of  mankind  en 
masse,  with  big  effects  of  dark  and  light :  broad  brush- 
work  on  a  canvas  suited  to  heroical,  even  epic,  themes, 
— a  sort  of  fiction  the  later  Zola  was  to  excel  in — 
Balzac  will  not  fail  us.  His  work  here  is  as  note- 
worthy as  it  is  in  the  fine  detailed  manner  of  his  most 
realistical  modem  studies — or  in  the  searching  analy- 
sis of  the  human  spirit.  "  The  Chouans  "  may  stand 
for  this  class :  it  has  all  the  fire,  the  color,  the  elan 
that  emanate  from  the  army  and  the  call  of  country. 
We  have  flashed  before  us  one  of  those  reactionary 
movements,  after  the  French  Revolution,  which  take 
on  a  magic  romanticism  because  they  culminate 
in  the  name  of  Napoleon.  While  one  reads,  one 
thinks  war,  breathes  war — it  is  the  only  life  for 
the  moment.  Just  ahead  a  step,  one  feels,  is  the 
"  imminent  deadly  breach  " ;  the  social  or  business 
or   Bohemian   doings  of  later  Paris  arc  as  if  they 


l(jt    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

did  not  exist.  And  this  particular  novel  will  achieve 
such  a  result  with  the  reader,  even  although  it  is  not 
by  an}'  means  one  of  Balzac's  supreme  achievements, 
being  in  truth,  a  little  aside  from  his  metier,  since  it 
is  historical  and  suggests  in  spots  the  manner  of 
Scott.  But  this  power  of  envisaging  war  (which  will 
be  farther  realized  if  such  slighter  works  as  "  A  Dark 
Affair  "  and  "  An  Episode  Under  the  Terror  "  be 
also  perused),  is  only  a  single  manifestation  of  a 
general  gift.  Suppose  there  is  desired  a  picture  very 
common  in  our  present  civilization — most  common  it 
may  be  in  America, — that  of  the  country  boy  going 
up  to  the  city  to  become — what.''  Perhaps  a  captain 
of  commerce,  or  a  leader  of  fashion :  perhaps  a  great 
writer  or  artist:  or  a  politician  who  shall  rule  the 
capitol.  It  is  a  venture  packed  full  of  realistic 
experience  but  equally  full  of  romance,  drama,  poetry 
— of  an  epic  suggestiveness.  In  two  such  volumes 
as  "  A  Great  Provincial  Man  in  Paris  "  and  "  Lost 
Illusions,"  all  this,  with  its  dire  chances  of  evil  as 
well  as  its  roseate  promise  of  success,  has  been  won- 
derfully expressed.  So  cogently  modern  a  motive 
had  never  been  so  used  before. 

Sometimes  in  a  brace  of  books  Balzac  shows  us  the 
front  and  back-side  of  some  certain  section  of  life: 
as  in  "  Cousin  Pons  "  and  "  Cousine  Bette." — The 
corner  of  Paris  where  artists,  courtesans  and  poor 
students  most  do  congregate,  where  Art  capitalized 
is  a  sacred  word,  and  the  odd  estrays  of  humanity, 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  l65 

picturesque,  humorous,  and  tragic,  display  all  the 
chances  of  mankind, — this  he  paints  so  that  we  do 
not  so  much  look  on  as  move  amidst  the  throng. 
In  the  first-named  novel,  assuredly  a  very  great  book, 
the  figure  of  the  quaint  old  connoisseur  is  one  of 
fiction's  superlative  successes :  to  know  him  is  to  love 
him  in  all  his  weakness.  In  the  second  book,  Bette 
is  a  female  vampire  and  the  story  around  her  as 
terrible  as  the  other  is  heart-warming  and  sweet. 
And  you  know  that  both  are  true,  true  as  they  would 
not  have  been  apart :  "  helpless  each  without  the 
other." 

Again,  how  much  of  the  gambling  activities  of 
modern  business  are  emblazoned  in  another  of  the 
acknowledged  masterpieces,  "  Caesar  Birotteau."  We 
can  see  in  it  the  prototype  of  much  that  comes  later 
in  French  fiction:  Daudet's  "  Risler  Aine  et  Froment 
Jcune  "  and  Zola's  "  L'Argcnt,"  to  name  but  two. 
Such  a  story  sums  up  the  practical,  material  side 
of  a  reign  or  an  epoch. 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  this  close  student 
of  human  nature,  whose  work  appears  so  often 
severely  mundane,  and  most  strong  when  its  roots 
go  down  into  the  earth,  sometimes  seeming  to  prefer 
the  rankness  and  slime  of  human  growths, — can  on 
occasion  soar  into  the  empyrean,  into  the  mystic 
region  of  dreams  and  ideals  and  all  manner  of  subtle 
imaginings.  Witness  such  fiction  as  "  The  Magic 
Skin,"  "  Seraphita,"  and  "  The  Quest  of  the  Abso- 


166    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

lute."  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  author  of  such 
creations  is  he  of  "  Pore  Goriot  "  or  "  Cousine  Bctte." 
But  it  is  Balzac's  wisdom  to  see  that  such  pictures 
are  quite  as  truly  part  of  the  Human  Comedy: 
because  they  represent  man  giving  play  to  his  soul — 
exercising  his  highest  faculties.  Nor  does  the  realis- 
tic novelist  in  such  efforts  have  the  air  of  one  who 
has  left  his  true  business  in  order  to  disport  himself 
for  once  in  an  alien  element.  On  the  contrary,  he 
seems  absolutely  at  home :  for  the  time,  this  is  his  only 
affair,  his  natural  interest. 

And  so  with  illustrations  practically  inexhaustible, 
which  the  long  list  prodigally  offers.  But  the  scope 
and  variety  have  been  already  suggested ;  the  best 
rule  with  Balzac  is,  each  one  to  his  taste,  always 
remembering  that  in  a  writer  so  catholic,  there  is  a 
peculiar  advantage  in  an  extended  study.  Nor  can 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  of  his  best  books  be  read 
without  a  growing  conviction  that  here  is  a  man  of 
genius  who  has  done  a  unique  thing. 

It  is  usual  to  refer  to  Balzac  as  the  first  great 
realist  of  the  French,  indeed,  of  modem  fiction. 
Strictly,  he  is  not  the  first  in  France,  as  we  have  seen, 
since  Beyle  preceded  him ;  nor  in  modern  fiction, 
for  Jane  Austen,  so  admirably  an  artist  of  verity, 
came  a  generation  before.  But,  as  always  when  a 
compelling  literary  force  appears,  Balzac  without 
any  question  dominates  in  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century :  more  than  this,  he  sets  the  mold  of 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  167 

the  type  which  marks  the  second  half.  In  fact,  the 
modern  Novel  means  Balzac's  recipe.  English  fiction, 
along  with  that  of  Europe,  shares  this  influence. 
We  shall  see  in  dealing  with  Dickens  how  definitely 
the  English  writer  adopted  the  Balzac  method  as 
suited  to  the  era  and  sympathetic  to  Dickens'  own 
nature. 

As  to  the  accuracy  with  which  he  gave  a  repre- 
sentation of  contemporary  life — thus  deserving  the 
name  realist — considerable  may  be  said  in  the  way  of 
qualification.  Much  of  it  applies  with  similar  force 
to  Zola,  later  to  be  hailed  as  a  king  among  modern 
realists  in  the  naturalistic  extreme  to  which  he  pushed 
the  movement.  Balzac,  through  his  remarkable  in- 
stinct for  detail  and  particularity,  did  introduce  into 
nineteenth  century  fiction  an  effect  of  greater  truth 
in  the  depiction  of  life.  Nobody  perhaps  had — no- 
body has  since — presented  mis-en-scene  as  did  he. 
He  builds  up  an  impression  by  hundreds  of  strokes, 
each  seemingly  insignificant,  but  adding  to  a  totality 
that  becomes  impressive.  Moreover,  again  and  again 
in  his  psychologic  analysis  there  are  home-thrusts 
which  bring  the  blood  to  the  face  of  any  honest 
person.  His  detail  is  thus  quite  as  much  subjective 
as  external.  It  were  a  great  mistake  to  regard 
Balzac  as  merely  a  writer  who  photographed  things 
outside  in  the  world ;  he  is  intensely  interested  in  the 
things  within — and  if  objectivity  meant  realism  ex- 
clusively, he  would  be  no  realist  at  all. 


168    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

But  farther  tluin  this;  with  all  his  care  for  minute 
touches  and  his  broad  and  painstaking  observation, 
it  is  not  so  much  life,  after  all,  as  a  vision  of  life 
■\vliich  he  gives.  This  contradicts  what  was  said 
early  in  the  present  chapter:  but  the  two  statements 
stand  for  the  change  llkcl^'  to  come  to  any  student 
of  Balzac:  his  objective  personality  at  last  resolves 
itself  into  a  vividly  personal  interpretation.  His 
breadth  blinds  one  for  a  while,  that  is  all.  Hence 
Balzac  may  be  called  an  incurable  romantic,  an 
impressionist,  as  much  as  realist.  Like  all  first-class 
art,  his  gives  us  the  seeming-true  for  our  better  in- 
stniction.  He  said  in  the  Preface  to  "  Pere  Goriot  " 
that  the  novelist  should  not  only  depict  the  world  as 
it  is,  but  "  a  possibly  better  world,"  He  has  done 
so.  The  most  untrue  thing  in  a  novel  may  be  the 
fact  lifted  over  unchanged  from  life.^  Truth  is  not 
onl}'  stranger  than  fiction,  but  great  fiction  is  truer 
than  truth.  Balzac  understood  this,  remembered  it 
in  his  heart.  He  is  too  big  as  man  and  artist  to  be 
confined  within  the  narrow  realistic  formula.  While, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  does  not  take  sides  on  moral 
issues,  nor  allow  himself  to  be  a  special  pleader  for 
this  or  that  view,  his  work  strikes  a  moral  balance  in 
that  it  shows  universal  humanity — not  humanity 
tranced  in  metaphysics,  or  pathologic  in  analysis, 
or  enmeshed  in  sensualism.  In  this  sense,  Balzac  is 
a  great  realist.  There  is  no  danger  of  any  novelist 
— any  painter  of  life — doing  harm,  if  he  but  gives 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  169 

us  the  whole.  It  is  the  storj-tcller  who  rolls  some 
prurient  morsel  under  his  tongue  who  has  the  taint 
in  him:  he  who,  to  sell  his  books,  panders  to  the 
degraded  instincts  of  his  audience.  Had  Balzac  been 
asked  point-blank  what  he  deemed  the  moral  duty 
of  the  novelist,  he  would  probably  have  disclaimed 
any  other  responsibility  than  that  of  doing  good 
work,  of  representing  things  as  they  are.  But  this 
matters  not,  if  only  a  writer's  nature  be  large  and 
vigorous  enough  to  report  of  humanity  in  a  trust- 
worthy way.  Balzac  was  much  too  well  endowed  in 
mind  and  soul  and  had  touched  life  far  too  widely, 
not  to  look  forth  upon  it  with  full  comprehension  of 
its  spiritual  meaning. 

In  spite,  too,  of  his  alleged  realism,  he  believed 
that  the  duty  of  the  social  historian  was  more  than 
to  give  a  statement  of  present  conditions — the  social 
documents  of  the  moment, — variable  as  they  might 
be  for  purposes  of  deduction.  He  insisted  that  the 
coming, — perhaps  seemingly  impossible  things,  should 
be  prophesied ; — those  future  ameliorations,  whether 
individual  or  collective,  which  keep  hope  alive  in  the 
human  breast.  Let  me  again  quote  those  words, 
extraordinary  as  coming  from  the  man  who  is  called 
arch-realist  of  his  day :  "  The  novelist  should  depict 
the  world  not  alone  as  it  is,  but  a  possibly  better 
world."  In  the  very  novel  where  he  said  it  ("  Pere 
Goriot  ")  he  may  seem  to  have  violated  the  principle: 
but  taking  his   fiction   in   its   whole   extent,   he    has 


170    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

acted  upon  it,  the  promiiiciiinicnto  exemplifies  his 
practice. 

Balzac's  work  has  a  Shaksperian  universality, 
because  it  is  so  distinctly  French, — a  familiar  para- 
dox in  literature.  He  was  French  in  his  feeling  for 
the  social  unit,  in  his  keen  receptivity  to  ideas,  in  his 
belief  in  Church  and  State  as  the  social  organisms 
through  which  man  could  best  work  out  his  salvation. 
We  find  him  teaching  that  humanity,  in  terms  of 
Gallic  temperament,  and  in  time  limits  between  the 
Revolution  and  the  Second  Republic,  is  on  the  whole 
best  served  by  living  under  a  constitutional  monarchy 
and  in  vital  touch  with  Mother  Church, — that  form 
of  religion  which  is  a  racial  inheritance  from  the 
Past.  In  a  sense,  then,  he  was  a  man  with  the  lim- 
itations of  his  place  and  time,  as,  in  truth,  was 
Shakspere.  But  the  study  of  literature  instructs 
us  that  it  is  exactly  those  who  most  vitally  grasp  and 
voice  their  own  land  and  period,  who  are  apt  to 
give  a  comprehensive  view  of  humanity  at  large ; 
to  present  man  sub  specie  oetemitat'is.  This  is  so 
because,  thoroughly  to  present  any  particular  part 
of  mankind,  is  to  portray  all  mankind.  It  is  all 
tarred  by  the  same  stick,  after  all.  It  is  only  in  the 
superficials  that  unlikenesses  lie. 

Balzac  was  intensely  modern.  Had  he  lived  to- 
day, he  might  have  been  foremost  in  championing 
the  separation  of  Church  and  State  and  looked  on 
serenely  at  the  sequestration  of  the  religious  houses. 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  171 

But  writing  his  main  fiction  from  1830  to  1850,  his 
attitude  was  an  enlightened  one,  that  of  a  thoughtful 
patriot. 

His  influence  upon  nineteenth  century  English  fic- 
tion was  both  direct  and  indirect.  It  was  direct  in  its 
effect  upon  several  of  the  major  novelists,  as  will  be 
noted  in  studying  them ;  the  indirect  influence  is  per- 
haps still  more  important,  because  it  was  so  all-per- 
vasive, like  an  emanation  that  expressed  the  Time.  It 
became  impossible,  after  Balzac  had  lived  and  wrought, 
for  any  artist  who  took  his  art  seriously  to  write  fic- 
tion as  if  the  great  Frenchman  had  not  come  first.  He 
set  his  seal  upon  that  form  of  literature,  as  Ibsen,  a 
generation  later,  was  to  set  his  seal  upon  the  drama, 
revolutionizing  its  technique.  To  the  student  there- 
fore he  is  a  factor  of  potent  power  in  explaining  the 
modern  fictional  development.  Nor  should  he  be 
a  negligible  quantity  to  the  cultivated  reader  seeking 
to  come  genially  into  acquaintance  with  the  best  that 
European  letters  has  accomplished.  While  upon  the 
lover  of  the  Novel  as  a  form  of  literature — which 
means  the  mass  of  all  readers  to-day — Balzac  cannot 
fail  to  exercise  a  personal  fascination. — Life  widens 
before  us  at  his  touch,  and  that  glamour  which  is  the 
imperishable  gift  of  great  art,  returns  again  as  one 
turns  the  pages  of  the  little  library  of  yellow  books 
which  contain  the  Human  Comedy. 

Balzac  died  in  1850,  when  in  the  prime  of  his 
powers.     Seven  years  later  was  published  the  "  Mad- 


17-2    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

anic  Bovarj  "of  Flaubert,  one  of  tlie  most  remark- 
able novels  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  most 
unrelenting  depiction  of  the  devolution  of  a  woman's 
soul  in  all  fiction :  certainly  it  deserved  that  descrip- 
tion up  to  the  hour  of  its  appearance,  if  not  now, 
when  so  much  has  been  done  in  the  realm  of  female 
pathology.  Flaubert  is  the  most  noteworthy  inter- 
mediate figure  between  Balzac  and  Zola.  He  seems 
personally  of  our  own  day,  for,  living  to  be  an  old 
man,  he  was  friend  and  fellow-worker  Avith  the 
brothers  Goncourt  (whom  we  associate  with  Zola) 
and  extended  a  fatherl}^  hand  to  the  young  Maupas- 
sant at  the  beginning  of  the  lattcr's  carecr,^ — so 
brilliant,  brief,  tragic.  The  influence  of  this  one 
novel  (overlooking  that  of  "  Salambo,"  in  its  way 
also  of  influence  in  the  modern  growth)  has  been 
especially  great  upon  a  kind  of  fiction  most  char- 
acteristic of  the  present  generation :  in  which,  in  fact, 
it  has  assumed  a  "  bad  preeminence."  I  mean  the 
Novel  of  sexual  relations  in  their  irregular  aspects. 
The  stormy  artist  of  the  Goncourt  dinners  has  much 
to  answer  for,  if  we  regard  him  only  as  the  creator 
of  such  a  creature  as  Madame  Bovary.  ]\Iany  later 
books  were  to  surpass  this  in  license,  in  coarseness, 
or  in  the  effect  of  evoking  a  libidinous  taste ;  but  none 
in  its  unrelenting  gloom,  the  cold  detachment  of  the 
artist-scientist  obsessed  with  the  idea  of  truthfully 
reflecting  certain  sinister  facets  of  the  many-faced 
gem  called  life!     It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  in 


FRENCH  INFLUENCE  173 

the  liglit  of  the  facts,  that  "  Madame  Bovary  "  was 
epochal.  It  paved  the  way  for  Zola.  It  justified  a 
new  aim  for  the  modern  fiction  of  so-called  unflinch- 
ing realism.  The  saddest  thing  about  the  book  is 
its  lack  of  pity,  of  love.  Emma  Bovary  is  a  weak 
woman,  not  a  bad  woman ;  she  goes  downhill  through 
the  force  of  circumstances  coupled  with  a  want  of 
backbone.  And  she  is  not  responsible  for  her  flabby 
moral  muscles.  Behind  the  story  is  an  absolutely 
fatalistic  philosophy ;  given  a  certain  environment, 
any  woman  (especially  if  assisted  a  bit  by  her  an- 
cestors) will  go  to  hell, — such  seems  the  lesson.  Now 
there  is  nothing  just  like  this  in  Balzac.  We  hear 
in  it  a  new  note,  the  latter-day  note  of  quiescence, 
and  despair.  And  if  we  compare  Flaubert's  in- 
difference to  his  heroine's  fate  with  the  tenderness 
of  Dumas  fils,  or  of  Daudet,  or  the  English  Reade 
and  Dickens — we  shall  realize  that  we  have  here  a 
mixture  of  a  personal  and  a  coming  general  interpre- 
tation: Flaubert  having  by  nature  a  kind  of  aloof 
determinism,  yet  feeling,  like  the  first  puffs  of  a  cold 
chilling  wind,  the  oncoming  of  an  age  of  Doubt. 

III. 

These  three  French  writers  then,  Stendhal,  Balzac 
and  Flaubert,  molded  the  Novel  before  1860  into 
such  a  shape  as  to  make  it  plastic  to  the  hand  of  Zola 
a  decade  later.     Zola's   influence  upon   our  present 


17  1.   MAsri:us  oi'  tiik  English  novel 

generation  of  Knglish  fiction  has  been  great,  as  it 
has  upon  all  novel-making  since  1870.  Before  ex- 
plaining this  further,  it  will  be  best  to  return  to  the 
study  of  the  mid-century  English  novelists  who  were 
too  early  to  be  affected  by  him  to  any  perceptible 
degree. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DICKENS 

By  the  year  1850,  in  England,  the  so-called  Novel 
of  realism  had  conquered.  Scott  in  an  earlier 
generation  had  by  his  wonderful  gift  made  the 
romance  fashionable.  But,  as  we  said,  it  was  the 
romance  with  a  difference:  the  romance  with  its  feet 
firmly  planted  on  mother-earth,  not  ballooning  in 
cloudland;  the  romance  depicting  men  and  women 
of  the  past  but  yet  men  and  women,  not  creatures 
existing  only  in  the  fancy  of  the  romance-maker. 
In  short,  Scott,  romancer  though  he  was,  helped 
modern  realism  along,  because  he  handled  his  material 
more  truthfully  than  it  had  been  handled  before. 
And  his  great  contemporary,  Jane  Austen,  with  her 
strict  adherence  to  the  present  and  to  her  own  locale, 
threw  all  her  influence  in  the  same  direction,  justify- 
ing Mr.  Howell's  assertion  that  she  leads  all  English 
novelists  in  that  same  truthful  handling. 

Moreover,  that  occult  but  imperative  thing,  the 
spirit  of  the  Time,  was  on  the  side  of  Realism:  and 
all  bend  to  its  dictation.  Then,  in  the  mid-century, 
Dickens  and  Thackeray,  with  George  Eliot  a  little 
later  on  their  heels,  and  Trollope  too,  came  to  give 

175 


176    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

a  (loopor  set  to  the  current  wlilch  was  to  flow  in 
similar  channels  for  the  remainder  of  the  period.  In 
brief,  this  is  the  story,  whatever  modifications  of 
the  main  current  are  to  be  noted :  the  work  of 
Bulwer  and  Disraeli,  of  Reade,  Kingsley  and 
Collins. 

A  decade  before  Thackeray  got  a  general  hearing 
Dickens  had  fame  and  mighty  influence.  It  was  in 
the  eighteen  thirties  that  the  self-made  son  of  an 
impecunious  navy  clerk,  who  did  not  live  in  vain 
since  he  sat  for  a  portrait  of  Micawber  and  the  father 
of  the  Marshalsea,  turned  from  journalism  to  that 
higher  reporting  which  means  the  fiction  of  manners 
and  humors.  All  the  gods  had  prepared  him  for 
his  destiny.  Sympathy  he  had  for  the  poor,  the 
oppressed,  the  physically  and  morally  unfit,  for  he 
had  suffered  in  his  own  person,  or  in  his  imagination, 
for  them  all.  His  gift  of  observation  had  been  sharp- 
ened in  the  grim  school  of  necessity :  he  had  learned 
to  write  by  writing  under  the  pressure  of  newspaper 
needs.  And  he  had  in  his  blood,  while  still  hardly 
more  than  a  lad,  a  feeling  for  idiomatic  English 
which,  so  far  as  it  was  not  a  boon  straight  from 
heaven,  had  been  fostered  when  the  very  young 
Charles  had  battened,  as  we  saw,  upon  the  eighteenth 
century  worthies. 

It  is  now  generally  acknowledged  that  Dickens  is 
not  a  temporary  phenomenon  in  Victorian  letters, 
but  a  very  solid  major  fact  in  the  native  literature, 


DICKENS  177 

too  large  a  creative  force  to  be  circumscribed  by  a 
generation.  Looked  back  upon  across  the  gap  of 
time,  he  looms  up  all  the  more  impressively  because 
the  years  have  removed  the  clutter  about  the  base  of 
the  statue.  The  temporary  loss  of  critical  regard 
(a  loss  affecting  his  hold  on  the  general  reading 
public  little,  if  any)  has  given  way  to  an  almost 
violent  critical  reaction  in  his  favor.  We  are  widen- 
ing the  esthetic  canvas  to  admit  of  the  test  of  life, 
and  are  coming  to  realize  that,  obsessed  for  a  time 
by  the  attraction  of  that  lower  truth  which  makes 
so  much  of  external  realities,  realism  lost  sight  of 
the  larger  demands  of  art  which  include  selection, 
adaptation,  and  that  enlargement  of  effect  marking 
the  distinction  between  art  and  so-called  reality.  No 
critic  is  now  timid  about  saying  a  good  word  for 
the  author  of  "  Pickwick  "  and  "  Copperfield."  A 
few  years  ago  it  was  otherwise.  Present-day  critics 
such  as  Henley,  Lang,  and  Chesterton  have  assured 
the  luke-warm  that  there  is  room  in  English  literature 
for  both  Thackeray  and  Dickens. 

That  Dickens  began  to  write  fiction  as  a  very 
young  journalist  was  in  some  ways  in  his  favor;  in 
other  ways,  to  the  detriment  of  his  work.  It  meant  an 
early  start  on  a  career  of  over  thirty  years.  It  meant 
writing  under  pressure  with  the  spontaneity  and 
reality  which  usually  result.  It  also  meant  the  bold 
grappling  with  the  technique  of  a  great  art,  learning 
to  make  novels  by  making  them.     Again,  one  truly 


178    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

inspired   to  fiction   is   lucky   to  have  a   novitiate  in. 
youtli.      So  far  the  advantages. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  faults  due  to  inexperience, 
lack  of  education,  uncertainty  of  aim,  haste  and  care- 
lessness and  other  foes  of  perfection,  will  probably 
be  in  evidence  when  a  writer  who  has  scarcely  attained 
to  man's  estate  essays  fiction.  Dickens'  early  work 
has  thus  the  merits  and  demerits  of  his  personal 
history.  A  popular  and  able  parliamentary  re- 
porter, with  sympathetic  knowledge  of  London  and 
the  smaller  towns  where  his  duties  took  him,  pos- 
sessed of  a  marvelous  memory  which  photographed 
for  him  the  boyish  impressions  of  places  like  Chatham 
and  Rochester,  he  began  with  sketches  of  that  life 
interspersed  with  more  fanciful  tales  which  drew  upon 
his  imagination  and  at  times  passed  the  melodramatic 
border-line.  When  these  collected  pieces  were  pub- 
lished under  the  familiar  title  "  Sketches  by  Boz," 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  Dickens  of  the 
"  Pickwick  Papers  "  (which  was  to  appear  next  year) 
was  revealed.  Certainly,  the  main  qualities  of  a 
great  master  of  the  Comic  were  in  these  pages ;  so, 
in  truth,  was  the  master  of  both  tears  and  smiles. 
But  not  at  full-length:  the  writer  had  not  yet  found 
his  occasion ; — the  man  needs  the  occasion,  even  as 
it  awaits  the  man.  And  so,  hard  upon  the  Boz  book, 
follow^ed,  as  it  were  by  an  accident,  the  world-famous 
"  Adventures  of  Mr.  Pickwick."  By  accident,  I  say, 
because  the  promising  young  author  was  asked  to 


DICKENS  179 

furnish  the  letter-press  for  a  series  of  comic  sporting 
pictures  by  the  noted  artist,  Seymour;  whereupon — 
doubtless  to  the  astonishment  of  all  concerned,  the 
pictures  became  quite  secondary  to  the  reading  matter 
and  the  Wellers  soon  set  all  England  talking  and 
laughing  over  their  inimitable  sayings.  Here  in  a 
loosely  connected  series  of  sketches  the  main  unity  of 
which  was  the  personality  of  Mr.  Pickwick  and  his 
club,  its  method  that  of  the  episodic  adventure  story 
of  "  Gil  Bias  "  lineage,  its  purpose  frankly  to  amuse 
at  all  costs,  a  new  creative  power  in  English  literature 
gave  the  world  over  three  hundred  characters  in  some 
sixty  odd  scenes:  intensely  English,  intensely  human, 
and  still,  after  the  lapse  of  three  quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury, keenly  enjoyable. 

In  a  sense,  all  Dickens'  qualities  are  to  be  found 
in  "  The  Pickwick  Papers,"  as  they  have  come  to 
be  called  for  brevity's  sake.  But  the  assertion  is 
misleading,  if  it  be  taken  to  mean  that  in  the  fifteen 
books  of  fiction  which  Dickens  was  to  produce,  he 
added  nothing,  failed  to  grow  in  his  art  or  to  widen 
and  deepen  in  his  hold  upon  life.  So  far  is  this 
from  the  truth,  that  one  who  only  knows  Charles 
Dickens  in  this  first  great  book  of  fun,  knows  a  phase 
of  him,  not  the  whole  man :  more,  hardly  knows  the 
novelist  at  all.  He  was  to  become,  and  to  remain, 
not  only  a  great  humorist,  but  a  great  novelist  as 
well:  and  "Pickwick"  is  not,  by  definition,  a  Novel 
at  all.     Hence,  the  next  book  the  following  year, 


180    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

"  Oliver  Twist,"  was  important  as  answering  tlie 
question :  Was  the  brilliant  new  writer  to  turn  out 
very  novelist,  able  to  invent,  handle  and  lead  to  due 
end  a  tangled  representation  of  social  life? 

Before  replying,  one  rather  important  matter  may 
be  adverted  to,  conceniing  the  Dickens  introduced  to 
the  world  by  "  Pickwick  " :  his  astonishing  power  in 
the  evocation  of  human  beings,  whom  we  affec- 
tionately remember,  whose  words  are  treasured, 
whose  fates  are  followed  with  a  sort  of  sense  of 
personal  responsibility.  If  the  creation  of  differ- 
entiated types  of  humanity  who  persist  in  living  in 
the  imagination  be  the  cardinal  gift  of  the  fiction 
writer,  then  this  one  is  easily  the  leading  novelist 
of  the  race.  Putting  aside  for  the  moment  the 
question  of  his  caricaturing  tendency,  one  fact  con- 
fronts us,  hardly  to  be  explained  away:  we  can  close 
our  eyes  and  see  Micawber,  jNIrs.  Gamp,  Pegotty, 
Dick  Swiveller,  the  Artful  Dodger,  Joe  Gargery, 
Tootles,  Captain  Cutter,  and  a  hundred  more,  and 
their  sayings,  quaint  and  dear,  are  like  household 
companions.  And  this  is  true  in  equal  measure  of 
no  other  story-maker  who  has  used  English  speech — 
it  may  be  doubted  if  it  is  true  to  like  degree  of 
Shakspere  himself. 

In  the  quick-following  stories,  "  Oliver  Twist "  and 
"  Nicholas  Nickleby,"  the  author  passed  from  episode 
and  comic  characterization  to  what  were  in  some  sort 
Novels:  the  fiction  of  organism,  growth  and  climax. 


DICKENS  181 

His  wealth  of  character  creation  was  continued  and 
even  broadened.  But  there  was  more  here:  an  at- 
tempt to  play  the  game  of  Novel-making.  It  may  be 
granted  that  when  Dickens  wrote  these  early  books 
(as  a  young  man  in  the  twenties),  he  had  not  yet 
mastered  many  of  the  difficulties  of  the  art  of  fiction. 
There  is  loose  construction  in  both:  the  melodrama 
of  "  Oliver  Twist  "  blends  but  imperfectly  with  the 
serious  and  sentimental  part  of  the  narrative,  which 
is  less  attractive.  So,  too,  in  "  Nickleby,"  there  is 
an  effect  at  times  of  thin  ice  where  the  plot  is  sec- 
ondary to  the  episodic  scenes  and  characters  by  the 
way.  Yet  in  both  Novels  there  is  a  story  and  a  good 
one :  we  get  the  spectacle  of  genius  learning  its  lesson, 
— experimenting  in  a  form.  And  as  those  other 
early  books,  differing  totally  from  each  other  too, 
"  Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  and  "  Barnaby  Budge,"  were 
produced,  and  in  turn  were  succeeded  by  a  series  of 
great  novels  representing  the  writer's  young  prime, — 
I  mean  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  "  Dombey  and  Son  " 
and  "  David  Copperfield," — it  was  plain  that  the 
hand  of  Dickens  was  becoming  subdued  to  the  element 
it  worked  in.  Not  only  was  there  a  good  fable,  as 
before,  but  it  was  managed  with  increasing  mastery, 
while  the  general  adumbration  of  life  gained  in  solid- 
ity, truth  and  rich  human  quality.  In  brief,  by 
the  time  "  Copperfield,"  the  story  most  often  re- 
ferred to  as  his  best  work,  was  reached,  Dickens  was 
an   artist.     He  wrought   in  that   fiction   in   such  a 


1S',J    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

fashion  as  to  make  the  most  of  the  particular  class 
of  Novel  it  represented :  to  wit,  the  first-person  auto- 
biograpliic  picture  of  life.  Given  its  purpose,  it 
could  liardlj  have  been  better  done.  It  surely  bears 
favorable  comparison,  for  architecture,  with  Thack- 
eray's "  Vanity  Fair,"  a  work  in  the  same  genre, 
though  lacking  the  autobiographic  method.  This  is 
quite  aside  from  its  remarkable  range  of  character- 
portrayal,  its  humor,  pathos  and  vraiseml^lance,  its 
feeling  for  situation,  its  sonorous  eloquence  in  massed 
effects. 

By  the  time  he  had  reached  mid-career,  then, 
Charles  Dickens  had  made  himself  a  skilled,  resource- 
ful story-teller,  while  his  unique  qualities  of  visualiza- 
tion and  interpretation  had  strengthened.  This 
point  is  worth  emphasis,  since  there  are  those  who  con- 
tend that  "  The  Pickwick  Papers  "  is  his  most  char- 
acteristic performance.  Such  a  judgment  is  absurd. 
It  overlooks  the  grave  beauty  of  the  picture  of 
Chesney  Wold  in  Bleak  House ;  the  splendid  harmony 
of  the  Yarmouth  storm  in  "  Copperfield  " ;  the  fine 
melodrama  of  the  chapter  in  "  Chuzzlewit  "  where  the 
guilty  Jonas  takes  his  haggard  life;  the  magnificent 
portraiture  of  the  Father  of  the  Marshalsea  in 
"  Little  Dorrit " :  the  spiritual  exaltation  in  vivid 
stage  terms  of  Carton's  death;  the  exquisite  April- 
day  blend  of  tenderness  and  fun  in  limning  the  young 
life  of  a  Marchioness,  a  little  Dombey  and  a  tiny  Tim. 
To  call  Dickens  a  comic  writer  and  stop  there,  is 


DICKENS  183 

to  try  to  pour  a  river  into  a  pint  pot ;  for  a  sort  of 
ebullient  boy-like  spirit  of  fun,  the  high  jinks  of 
literature,  we  go  to  "  Pickwick  " ;  for  the  light  and 
shade  of  life  to  "  Copperfield  " ;  for  the  structural 
excellencies  of  fiction  to  later  masterpieces  like  "  The 
Tale  of  Two  Cities  "  and  "  Great  Expectations." 

Just  here  a  serious  objection  often  brought  against 
Dickens  may  be  considered:  liis  alleged  tendency 
to  caricature.  Does  Dickens  make  his  characters 
other  than  what  life  itself  shows,  and  if  so,  is  he 
wrong  in  so  doing.'' 

His  severest  critics  assume  the  second  if  the  first 
be  but  granted.  Life — meaning  the  exact  reproduc- 
tion of  reality — is  their  fetish.  Now,  it  must  be 
granted  that  Dickens  does  make  his  creatures  talk 
as  their  prototypes  do  not  in  life.  Nobody  would  for 
a  moment  assert  that  Mrs.  Gamp,  Pecksniff  and 
Micawber  could  be  literally  duplicated  from  the 
actual  world.  But  is  not  Dickens  within  his  rights 
as  artist  in  so  changing  the  features  of  life  as  to 
increase  our  pleasure?  That  is  the  nub  of  the 
whole  matter.  The  artist  of  fiction  should  not  aim 
at  exact  photography,  for  it  is  impossible ;  no  fiction- 
maker  since  time  began  has  placed  on  the  printed 
pages  half  the  irrelevance  and  foolishness  or  one-fifth 
the  filth  which  are  in  life  itself.  Reasons  of  art 
and  ethics  forbid.  The  aim,  therefore,  should  rather 
be  at  an  effect  of  life  through  selection  and  re-shap- 
ing.    And  I  believe  Dickens  is  true  to  this  require- 


181    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

mcnt.  Wo  hear  less  now  than  formerly  of  his  crazy 
exaggerations :  we  are  beginning  to  realize  that  per- 
haps he  saw  types  that  were  there,  which  we  would 
overlook  if  they  were  under  our  very  eyes:  we  feel 
the  wisdom  of  Chesterton's  remarks  that  Dickens' 
characters  will  live  forever  because  they  never  lived 
at  all !  We  suffered  from  the  myopia  of  realism. 
Zola  desired  above  all  things  to  tell  the  truth  by 
representing  humanity  as  porcine,  since  he  saw  it 
that  way:  he  failed  in  his  own  purpose,  because 
decency  checked  him:  his  art  is  not  photographic 
(according  to  his  proud  boast)  but  has  an  almost 
Japanese  convention  of  restraint  in  its  suppression 
of  facts.  Had  Sarah  Gamp  been  allowed  by  Dickens 
to  speak  as  she  would  speak  in  life,  she  would  have 
been  unspeakably  repugnant,  never  cherished  as  a 
permanently  laughable,  even  lovable  figure  of  fiction. 
Dickens  was  a  master  of  omissions  as  well  as  of  those 
cnlargments  which  made  him  carry  over  the  foot- 
lights. Mrs.  Gamp  is  a  monumental  study  of  the 
coarse  woman  rogue:  her  creator  makes  us  hate  the 
sin  and  tolerate  the  sinner.  Nor  is  that  other  mas- 
terly portrait  of  the  woman  rascal — Thackeray's 
Becky  Sharp — an  example  of  strict  photog- 
raphy; she  is  great  in  seeming  true,  but  she  is  not 
life. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  charge  of  caricature:  it 
is  all  a  matter  of  degree.  It  all  depends  upon  the 
definition  of  art,  and  upon  the  effect  made  upon  the 


DICKENS  185 

world  by  the  characters  themselves.  If  they  live  in 
loving  memory,  they  must,  in  the  large  sense,  be  true. 
Thus  we  come  back  to  the  previous  statement: 
Dickens'  people  live — are  known  by  their  words  and 
in  their  ways  all  over  the  civilized  world.  No  col- 
lection of  mere  grotesques  could  ever  bring  this  to 
pass.  Prick  any  typical  creation  of  Dickens  and  it 
runs  blood,  not  sawdust.  And  just  in  proportion  as 
we  travel,  observe  broadly  and  form  the  habit  of  a 
more  penetrating  and  sympathetic  study  of  man- 
kind, shall  we  believe  in  these  emanations  of  genius. 
Occasionally,  under  the  urge  and  surplusage  of  his 
comic  force,  he  went  too  far  and  made  a  Quilp :  but 
the  vast  majority  even  of  his  drolls  are  as  credible 
as  they  are  dear. 

That  he  showed  inequality  as  he  wrought  at  the 
many  books  which  filled  the  years  between  "  Pick- 
wick "  and  the  unfinished  "  Mystery  of  Edwin 
Drood,"  may  also  be  granted.  Also  may  it  be  con- 
fessed that  within  the  bounds  of  one  book  there  are 
the  extremes  of  good  and  bad.  It  is  peculiar  to 
Dickens  that  often  in  the  very  novel  we  perchance 
feel  called  upon  to  condemn  most,  occurs  a  scene 
or  character  as  memorably  great  as  anything  he 
left  the  world.  Thus,  we  may  regard  "  Old  Curiosity 
Shop,"  once  so  beloved,  as  a  failure  when  viewed 
as  a  whole ;  and  yet  find  Dick  Swiveller  and  the 
Marchioness  at  their  immortal  game  as  unforgettable 
as  Mrs.   Battle  engaged  in  the  same  pleasant  cm- 


18G    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

plo3-inent.  Nor  because  other  parts  of  "  Little 
Dorrit "  seem  thin  and  artificial,  would  we  forego 
the  description  of  tlie  debtor's  prison.  And  our 
belief  that  the  presentation  of  the  labor-capital  prob- 
lem in  "  Hard  Times  "  is  hasty  and  shallow,  does 
not  prevent  a  recognition  of  the  opening  sketcli  of  the 
circus  troop  as  displaying  its  author  at  his  happiest 
of  humorous  observation.  There  are  thus  always 
redeeming  things  in  the  stories  of  this  most  unequal 
man  of  genius.  Seven  books  there  are,  novels  in 
form,  which  are  indubitable  masterpieces:  "Martin 
Chuzzlewit,"  "  Dombey  and  Son,"  "  David  Copper- 
field,"  "Bleak  House,"  "A  Talc  of  Two  Cities," 
"  Great  Expectations  "  and  "  Our  Mutual  Friend." 
These,  were  all  the  others  withdrawn,  would  give 
ample  evidence  of  creative  power :  they  have  the  large- 
ness, variety  and  inventive  vei'\'e  which  only  are  to 
be  found  in  the  major  novelists.  Has  indeed  the 
same  number  of  equal  weight  and  quality  been  given 
forth  by  any  other  English  writer.'^ 

Another  proof  that  the  power  of  Dickens  was  not 
dependent  exclusively'  upon  the  comic,  is  his  produc- 
tion of  "  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities."  It  is  sometimes 
referred  to  as  uncharacteristic  because  it  lacks  almost 
entirely  his  usual  gallery  of  comics:  but  it  is  tri- 
umphantly a  success  in  a  different  field.  The  author 
says  he  wished  for  the  nonce  to  make  a  straight  ad- 
venture tale  with  characters  secondary.  He  did  it  in 
a  manner  which  has  always  made  the  romance  a  favor- 


DICKENS  187 

ite,  and  compels  us  to  include  this  dramatic  study 
of  the  French  Revolution  among  the  choicest  of  his 
creations.  Its  period  and  scene  have  never — save  by 
Carlyle — ^been  so  brilliantly  illuminated.  Dickens 
was  brooding  on  this  story  at  a  time  when,  wretchedly 
unhappy,  he  was  approaching  the  crisis  of  a  separa- 
tion from  his  wife:  the  fact  may  help  to  explain  its 
failure  to  draw  on  that  seemingly  inexhaustible  foun- 
tain of  bubbling  fun  so  familiar  in  his  work.  But 
even  subtract  humor  and  Dickens  exhibits  the  master- 
hand  in  a  fiction  markedly  of  another  than  his  wonted 
kind.  This  Novel — or  romance,  as  it  should  properly 
be  called — reminds  us  of  a  qualitj^  in  Dickens  which 
has  been  spoken  of  in  the  way  of  derogation:  his 
theatrical  tendency.  When  one  declares  an  author 
to  be  dramatic,  a  compliment  is  intended.  But  when 
he  is  called  theatric,  censure  is  implied.  Dickens, 
alwaj'^s  possessed  of  a  strong  sense  of  the  dramatic 
and  using  it  to  immense  advantage,  now  and 
again  goes  further  and  becomes  theatric:  that  is,  he 
suggests  the  manipulating  of  effects  with  artifice  and 
the  intention  of  providing  sensational  and  scenic  re- 
sults at  the  expense  of  proportion  and  truth.  A 
word  on  this  is  advisable. 

Those  familiar  with  the  man  and  his  works  are 
aware  how  close  he  always  stood  to  the  playhouse 
and  its  product.  He  loved  it  from  early  youth,  all 
but  went  on  the  stage  professionally,  knew  its  people 
as  have  few  of  the  writing  craft,  was  a  fine  amateur 


ISS    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

actor  himself,  wrote  for  the  stage,  lielpcd  to  dramatize 
his  novels  and  gave  delightful  studies  of  theatrical 
life  in  his  books.  Shall  we  ever  forget  ]\Ir.  Crummies 
and  his  fiunilj'?  He  had  an  instinctive  feeling  for 
what  was  scenic  and  effective  in  the  stage  sense. 
When  he  appeared  as  a  reader  of  his  own  works,  he 
was  an  impersonator;  and  noticeably  careful  to  have 
the  stage  accessories  exactly  right.  And  when  all 
this,  natural  and  acquired,  was  applied  to  fiction,  it 
could  not  but  be  of  influence.  As  a  result,  Dickens 
sometimes  forced  the  note,  favored  the  lurid,  exagger- 
ated his  comic  effects.  To  put  it  in  another  way, 
this  theater  manner  of  his  now  and  then  injured  the 
literature  he  made.  But  that  is  only  one  side  of  the 
matter :  it  also  helped  him  greatly  and  where  he  went 
too  far,  he  was  simply  abusing  a  precious  gift.  To 
speak  of  Dickens'  violent  theatricalitj-  as  if  it  ex- 
pressed his  whole  being,  is  like  describing  the  wart 
on  Cromwell's  face  as  if  it  were  his  set  of  features. 
Remove  from  Dickens  his  dramatic  power,  and  the 
memorable  master  would  be  no  more :  he  would  vanish 
into  dim  air.  We  may  be  thankful — in  view  of  what 
it  produced — that  he  possessed  even  in  excess  this 
sense  of  the  scenic  value  of  character  and  situation : 
it  is  not  a  disqualification  but  a  virtue,  and  not 
Dickens  alone  but  Dumas,  Hugo  and  Scott  were  great 
largely  because  of  it. 

In  the  praise  naturally  enough  bestowed  upon  a 
great  autobiographical  Novel  like  "  David  Copper- 


DICKENS  189 

field,"  the  fine  art  of  a  late  work  like  "  Great  Expec- 
tations "  has  been  overlooked  or  at  least  minimized. 
If  we  are  to  consider  skilful  construction  along  with 
the  other  desirable  qualities  of  the  novelist,  tliis  noble 
work  has  hardly  had  justice  done  it:  moreover,  every- 
thing considered, — story  value,  construction,  char- 
acters, atmosphere,  adequacj"^  of  st^lc,  climactic  in- 
terest, and  impressive  lesson,  I  should  name  "  Great 
Expectations,"  published  when  the  author  was  fifty, 
as  his  most  perfect  book,  if  not  the  greatest  of  Charles 
Dickens'  novels.  The  opinion  is  unconventional :  but 
as  Dickens  is  studied  more  as  artist  progressively 
skilful  in  his  craft,  I  cannot  but  believe  this  par- 
ticular story  will  receive  increasing  recognition.  In 
the  matter  of  sheer  manipulation  of  material,  it  is 
much  superior  to  the  book  that  followed  it  two  years 
later,  the  last  complete  novel :  "  Our  Mutual  Friend." 
It  is  rather  curious  that  this  story,  which  was  in  his 
day  and  has  steadily  remained  a  favorite  with  readers, 
has  with  equal  persistency  been  severel}'^  handled  by 
the  critics.  ^^Tiat  has  insured  its  popularity.'' 
Probabl}^  its  vigor  and  variety  of  characterization, 
its  melodramatic  tinge,  the  teeming  world  of  dramatic 
contrasts  it  opens,  its  bait  to  our  sense  of  mystery. 
It  has  a  power  very  typical  of  the  author  and  one  of 
the  reasons  for  Dickens'  hold  upon  his  audience.  It 
is  a  power  also  exhibited  markedly  in  such  otlicr 
fictions  as  "  Dombey  and  Son,"  "  Martin  Chuzzle- 
wit  "  and  "  Bleak  House."     I  refer  to  the  impression 


lyo     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

convened  by  such  stories  that  life  is  a  vast,  tumult- 
uous, vari-colored  phiy  of  counter-motives  and 
counter-characters,  full  of  chance,  surprise,  change 
and  bitter  sweet:  a  thing  of  mystery,  terror,  pity  and 
joy.  It  has  its  masks  of  respectability,  its  frauds  of 
place,  its  beautj^  blossoming  in  the  mud,  its  high  and 
low  of  luck,  its  infinite  possibilities  betwixt  heaven 
and  hell.  The  effect  of  this  upon  the  sensitive  reader 
is  to  enlarge  his  sympathetic  feeling  for  humanity : 
life  becomes  a  big,  awful,  dear  phantasmagoria  in 
such  hands.  It  seems  not  like  a  flat  surface,  but  a 
thing  of  length,  breadth,  height  and  depth,  which  it 
has  been  a  privilege  to  enter.  Dickens'  fine  gift — 
aside  from  that  of  character  creation — is  found  in 
this  ability  to  convey  an  impression  of  puissant  life. 
He  himself  had  this  feeling  and  he  got  it  into  his 
books:  he  had,  in  a  happier  sense,  the  joy  of  life 
of  Ibsen,  the  life  force  of  Nietzsche.  From  only  a 
few  of  the  world's  great  writers  does  one  receive  this 
sense  of  life,  the  many-sided  spectacle;  Cervantes, 
Hugo,  Tolstoy,  Sienkiewicz,  it  is  men  like  they  that 
do  this  for  us. 

Another  side  of  Dickens'  literary  activity  is  shown 
in  his  Christmas  stories,  which  it  may  be  truly  said 
are  as  well  beloved  as  anything  he  gave  the  world 
in  the  Novel  form.  This  is  assuredly  so  of  the 
"Christmas  Carol,"  "The  Chimes"  and  "The 
Cricket  on  the  Hearth."  This  last  is  on  a  par  with 
the  other  two  in  view  of  its  double  life  in  a  book 


DICKENS  191 

and  on  the  boards  of  the  theater.  The  fragrance 
of  Home,  of  the  homely  kindness  and  tenderness  of 
the  human  heart,  is  in  them,  especially  in  the  Carol, 
which  is  the  best  tale  of  its  kind  in  the  tongue  and 
likely  to  remain  so.  It  permanently  altered  the 
feeling  of  the  race  for  Christmas.  Irving  preceded 
him  in  the  use  of  the  Christmas  motive,  but  Dickens 
made  it  forever  his  own.  By  a  master's  magic  evoca- 
tion, the  great  festival  shines  brighter,  beckons  more 
lovingly  than  it  did  of  old.  Thackeray  felt  this 
when  he  declared  that  such  a  story  was  "  a  public 
benefit."  Such  literature  lies  aside  from  our  main 
pursuit,  that  of  the  Novel,  but  is  mentioned  because 
it  is  the  best  example  possible,  the  most  direct,  simple 
expression  of  that  essential  kindness,  that  practical 
Christianity  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  Dickens' 
influence.  It  is  bonhomie  and  something  more.  It 
is  not  Dickens  the  refonner,  as  we  get  him  when  he 
satirizes  Dotheboys  hall,  or  the  Circumlocution 
Office  or  the  Chancery  Court:  but  Dickens  as  Mr. 
Greatheart,  one  with  all  that  is  good,  tender,  sweet 
and  true.  Tiny  Tim's  thousand-times  quoted  saying 
is  the  quintessence,  the  motto  for  it  all  and  the 
writer  speaks  in  and  througli  the  lad  when  he  says : 
"  God  bless  us,  every  one."  When  an  author  gets  that 
honest  unction  into  his  work,  and  also  has  the  gift  of 
observation  and  can  report  what  he  sees,  he  is  likely  to 
contribute  to  the  literature  of  his  land.  With  a  sneer 
of  the  cultivated  intellect,  we  may  call  it  elementary : 


i;)j     MASTERS  Ol"  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

but  to  the  heart,  sucli  a  view  of  life  is  royally  right. 
This  thought  of  Dickens'  moral  obligation  in  his 
work  and  his  instinctive  attitude  towards  his  audi- 
ence, leads  to  one  more  point:  a  main  reason  for  tliis 
Victorian  novelist's  strong  hold  on  the  affections  of 
mankind  is  to  be  found  in  the  warm  personal  rela- 
tion he  establishes  with  the  reader.  The  relationship 
implies  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  author,  a  vital 
bond  between  the  two,  a  recognition  of  a  steady, 
not  a  chance,  association.  There  goes  with  it,  too, 
an  assumption  that  the  author  believes  in  and  cares 
much  for  his  characters,  and  asks  the  reader  for  the 
same  faith.  This  personal  relation  of  author  to 
reader  and  of  both  to  the  imagined  characters,  has 
gone  out  of  fashion  in  fiction-making :  in  this  respect, 
Dickens  (and  most  of  his  contemporaries)  seem  now 
old-fashioned.  The  present  realist  creed  would  keep 
the  novelist  away  and  out  of  sight  both  of  his  Active 
creations  and  his  audience ;  it  being  his  business  to 
pull  the  strings  to  make  his  puppets  dance — up  to 
heaven  or  down  to  hell,  whatever  docs  it  matter  to 
the  scientist-novelist.''  Tolstoy's  novel  "Resurrec- 
tion "  is  as  a  subject  much  more  disagreeable  than 
Flaubert's  "Madame  Bovary";  but  it  is  beautiful 
where  the  other  is  horrible,  because  it  palpitates  with 
a  Christ-like  sympathy  for  an  en'ing  woman,  while 
the  French  author  cares  not  a  button  whether  his 
character  is  lost  or  not.  The  healthy-minded  public 
(which  can  be  trusted  in  heart,  if  not  in  head)  will 


DICKENS  193 

Instinctively  choose  that  treatment  of  life  in  a  piece 
of  fiction  which  shows  the  author  kindly  cooperative 
with  fate  and  brotherly  in  his  position  towards  his 
host  of  readers.  That  is  the  reason  Dickens  holds 
his  own  and  is  extremely  likely  to  gain  in  the  future, 
while  spectacular  reputations  based  on  all  the  virtues 
save  love,  continue  to  die  the  death.  What  M. 
Anatole  France  once  said  of  Zola,  applies  to  the 
whole  school  of  the  aloof  and  unloving:  "There  is 
in  man  an  infinite  need  of  loving  which  renders  him 
divine.  M.  Zola  does  not  know  it.  .  .  .  The 
holiness  of  tears  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  religions. 
Misfortune  would  suffice  to  render  man  august  to 
man.     M.  Zola  does  not  know  it." 

Charles  Dickens  does  know  these  truths  and  they 
get  into  his  work  and  that  work,  therefore,  gets  not 
so  much  into  the  minds  as  into  the  souls  of  his 
fellow-man.  When  we  recite  the  sayings  which  iden- 
tify his  classic  creations :  when  we  express  ourselves 
in  a  Pickwickian  sense,  wait  for  something  to  turn  up 
with  Mr.  Micawber,  drop  into  poetry  with  Silas 
Wegg,  move  on  with  little  Joe,  feel  'umble  after  the 
manner  of  Uriah  Heap,  are  willin'  with  Barkis,  make 
a  note  of,  in  company  with  Captain  Cuttle,  or  con- 
clude with  Mr.  Weller,  Senior,  that  it  is  the  part  of 
wisdom  to  beware  of  "  widders,"  we  may  observe  that 
what  binds  us  to  this  motley  crowd  of  creatures  is 
not  their  grotesquerie  but  their  common  humanity, 
their  likeness  to  ourselves,  the  mighty  flood-tide  of 


I9i    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

tolerant  human  sympathy  on  which  they  arc  floated 
into  the  safe  haven  of  our  hearts.  With  delightful 
understanding,  Charles  Dudley  Warner  writes: 
"  After  all,  there  is  something  about  a  boy  I  like." 
Dickens,  using  the  phrasing  for  a  wider  application, 
might  have  said :  "  After  all,  there  is  something  about 
men  and  women  I  like !  "  It  was  thus  no  accident 
that  he  elected  to  write  of  the  lower  middle  classes ; 
choosing  to  depict  the  misery  of  the  poor,  their  un- 
fair treatment  in  institutions;  to  depict  also  the  un- 
ease of  criminals,  the  cinished  state  of  all  underlings 
— whether  the  child  in  education  or  that  grown-up 
evil  child,  the  malefactor  in  prison.  He  was  a 
spokesman  of  the  people,  a  democratic  pleader  for 
justice  and  sympathy.  He  drew  the  proletariat 
preferably,  not  because  he  was  a  proletariat  but 
because  he  was  a  brother-man  and  the  fact  had  been 
overlooked.  He  drew  thousands  of  these  suppressed 
humans,  and  they  were  of  varied  types  and  fortunes: 
but  he  loved  them  as  though  they  were  one,  and  made 
the  world  love  them  too:  and  love  their  maker.  The 
deep  significance  of  Dickens,  perhaps  his  deepest, 
is  in  the  social  note  that  swells  loud  and  insistent 
through  his  fiction.  He  was  a  pioneer  in  the  demo- 
cratic sympathy  w^hich  was  to  become  so  marked  a 
feature  in  the  Novel  in  the  late  nineteenth  century: 
and  which,  as  we  have  alread3^  seen,  is  from  the  first  a 
distinctive  trait  of  the  modem  fiction,  one  of  the 
explanations  of  its  existence. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THACKERAY 

The  habit  of  those  who  appraise  the  relative  worth 
of  Dickens  and  Thackeray  to  fall  into  hostile  camps, 
swearing  by  one,  and  at  the  other,  has  its  amusing 
side  but  is  to  be  deprecated  as  irrational.  Why 
should  it  be  necessary  to  miss  appreciation  of  the  cre- 
ator of  "  Vanity  Fair  "  because  one  happens  to  like 
"David  Copperfield  "  ?  Surely,  our  literary  tastes 
or  standards  should  be  broad  enough  to  admit  into 
pleasurable  companionship  both  those  great  early 
Victorian  novelists. 

Yet,  on  second  thought,  there  would  appear  to  be 
some  reason  for  the  fact  that  ardent  lovers  of 
Thackeray  are  rarely  devotees  of  the  mighty  Charles 
— or  vice  versa.  There  is  something  mutually  ex- 
clusive in  the  attitude  of  the  two,  their  different  in- 
terpretation of  life.  Unlike  in  birth,  environment, 
education  and  all  that  is  summed  up  in  the  magic 
word  personality,  their  reaction  to  life,  as  a  scientist 
would  say,  was  so  opposite  that  a  reader  naturally 
drawn  to  one,  is  quite  apt  to  be  repelled  by  (or  at 
least,  cold  to)  the  other.  If  you  make  a  wide  canvass 
among  booklovers,  it  will  be  found  that  this  is  just 

195 


\06    MASTERS  or  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

what  happens.  Rarely  docs  a  stanch  supporter  of 
Dickens  show  a  more  than  Laodicean  temper  towards 
Thackeray ;  and  for  rabid  Thackcrians,  Dickens  too 
often  spells  disgust.  It  is  a  rare  and  enjoyable 
experience  to  meet  with  a  mind  so  catholic  as  to 
welcome  both.  The  backbone  of  tlie  trouble  is  per- 
sonal, in  the  natures  of  the  two  authors.  But  I  think 
it  is  worth  while  to  say  tliat  part  of  the  explanation 
may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  Thackeray  began 
fiction  ten  years  later  than  his  rival  and  was  in  a 
deeper  sense  than  was  Dickens  a  voice  of  the  later 
century.  This  means  much,  because  with  each  decade 
between  1830  and  1860,  English  thought  was  moving 
fast  tow^ard  that  scientific  faith,  that  disillusionment 
and  that  spirit  of  grim  truth  which  culminated  in 
the  work  of  the  final  quarter  of  the  century.  Thack- 
eray was  impelled  more  than  was  Dickens  by  the 
spirit  of  the  times  to  speak  the  truth  in  his  de- 
lineations of  contemporary  mankind:  and  this  oper- 
ated to  make  him  a  satirist,  at  times  a  savage  one. 
The  modem  thing  in  Dickens — and  he  had  it — was 
the  humanitarian  sympathy  for  the  submerged  tenth ; 
the  modern  thing  in  Thackeray,  however,  was  his 
fearlessness  in  uncovering  the  conventional  shams  of 
polite  society.  The  idols  that  Dickens  smashed  (and 
never  was  a  bolder  iconoclast)  were  to  be  seen  of  all 
men :  but  Thackeray's  were  less  tangible,  more  subtle, 
part  and  parcel  of  his  own  class.  In  this  sense,  and 
I  believe  because  he  began  his  major  novel-writing 


THACKERAY  197 

about  1850,  whereas  the  other  began  fifteen  years 
before,  Thackeray  is  more  modern,  more  of  our  own 
time,  than  his  great  co-mate  in  fiction.  When  we 
consider  the  question  of  their  respective  interpreta- 
tions of  Life  it  is  but  fair  to  bear  in  mind  this  his- 
torical consideration,  although  it  would  be  an  error 
to  make  too  much  of  it.  Of  course,  in  judging 
Thackeray  and  trying  to  give  him  a  place  in  English 
fiction,  he  must  stand  or  fall,  like  any  other  writer, 
by  two  things :  his  art,  and  his  message.  Was  the 
first  fine,  the  other  sane  and  valuable — those  are  the 
twin  tests. 

A  somewhat  significant  fact  of  their  literary  his- 
tory may  be  mentioned,  before  an  attempt  is  made 
to  appreciate  Thackeray's  novels.  For  some  years 
after  Dickens'  death,  which,  it  will  be  remembered, 
occurred  six  years  after  Thackeray's,  the  latter 
gained  in  critical  recognition  while  Dickens  slowly 
lost.  There  can  be  little  question  of  this.  Lionized 
and  lauded  as  was  the  man  of  Gadshill,  promptly 
admitted  to  Westminster  Abbey,  it  came  to  pass  in 
time  that,  in  a  course  on  modern  English  literature 
offered  at  an  old  and  famous  New  England  college, 
his  name  was  not  deemed  worthy  of  even  a  reference. 
Some  critics  of  repute  have  scarce  been  able  to  take 
Dickens  seriously:  for  those  who  have  steadily  had 
the  temerity  to  care  for  him,  their  patronage  has 
been  vocal.  This  marks  an  astonishing  shift  of 
.opinion    from   that   current    in    1870.       Thackeray, 


19S    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

gaining  in  proportion,  has  been  hailed  as  an  exquisite 
artist,  one  of  tlie  few  truly  great  and  permanent 
English  figures  not  only  of  fiction  but  of  letters. 
But  in  the  most  recent  years,  again  a  change  has 
come:  the  pendulum  has  swung  back,  as  it  always 
does  when  an  excessive  movement  carries  it  too  far 
beyond  the  plumb  line.  Dickens  has  found  valiant, 
critical  defenders ;  lie  has  risen  fast  in  thouglitful 
so  well  as  popular  estimation  (although  with  the 
public  he  has  scarcely  fluctuated  in  favor)  until  he 
now  enjoys  a  sort  of  resurrection  of  popularity. 
What  is  the  cause  of  this  to-and-fro  of  judgment? 
The  main  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  tlie  changing 
literary  ideals  from  1850  to  1900.  When  Dickens 
was  active,  literature,  broadly  speaking,  was  esti- 
mated not  exclusively  as  art,  but  as  human  product, 
an  influence  in  the  world.  With  the  coming  of  the 
new  canon,  which  it  is  convenient  to  dub  by  the  catch- 
phrase.  Art  for  Art's  Sake,  a  man's  production 
began  to  be  tested  more  definitely  by  the  technique 
he  possessed,  the  skilled  way  in  which  he  performed 
his  task.  Did  he  play  the  game  well.'^  That  was 
the  first  question.  Often  it  was  the  first  and  last. 
If  he  did,  his  subject-matter,  and  his  particular  vision 
of  Life,  were  pretty  much  his  own  affair.  And  this 
modem  touchstone,  applied  to  the  writings  of  our 
two  authors,  favored  Thackeray.  Simple,  old- 
fashioned  readers  inclined  to  give  Dickens  the  prefer- 
ence  over   him   because   the    former's    interpretation 


THACKERAY  199 

of  humanity  was,  they  averred,  kmdlier  and  more 
wholesome.  Thackeray  was  cynical,  said  they; 
Dickens  humanitarian ;  but  the  later  critical  mood 
rebounded  from  Dickens,  since  he  preached,  was 
frankly  didactic,  insisted  on  his  mission  of  doing 
good — and  so  failed  in  his  art.  Now,  however,  that 
the  Vart  pour  art  shibboleth  has  been  sadly  over- 
worked and  is  felt  to  be  passing  or  obsolete,  the  world 
critical  is  reverting  to  that  broader  view  which  de- 
mands that  the  maker  of  literature  shall  be  both 
man  and  artist :  as  a  result,  Dickens  gains  in  pro- 
portion. This  explanation  makes  it  likely  that, 
looking  to  the  future,  while  Thackeray  may  not  lose, 
Dickens  is  sure  to  be  more  and  more  appreciated.  A 
return  to  a  saner  and  truer  criterion  will  be  general 
and  the  confines  of  a  too  narrow  estheticism  be  un- 
derstood :  or,  better  yet,  the  esthetic  will  be  so  de- 
fined as  to  admit  of  wider  application.  The  Gissings 
and  Chestertons  of  the  time  to  come  will  insist  even 
more  strenuously  than  those  of  ours  that  while  we 
may  have  improved  upon  Dickens'  technique — and 
every  schoolboy  can  tinker  his  faults — we  shall  do 
exceedingly  well  if  we  duplicate  his  genius  once  in 
a  generation.  And  they  will  add  that  Thackeray, 
another  man  of  genius,  had  also  his  malaises  of  art, 
was  likewise  a  man  with  the  mortal  failings  implied 
In  the  word.  For  it  cannot  now  be  denied  that 
just  as  Dickens'  faults  have  been  exaggerated, 
Thackeray's  have  been  overlooked. 


200    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

Thackeray  niiglit  lose  sadly  in  the  years  to  come 
could  it  be  demonstrated  tliat,  as  some  would  have 
it,  he  deserved  the  title  of  cynic.  Here  is  the  most 
mooted  point  in  Thackeray  appreciation :  it  inter- 
ests thousands  where  the  nice  questions  concerning 
the  novelist's  art  claim  the  attention  of  students 
alone.  What  can  be  said  with  regard  to  it.?  It 
will  help  just  here  to  think  of  the  man  behind  the 
work.  No  sensible  human  being,  it  would  appear, 
can  become  aware  of  the  life  and  personality  of 
Thackeray  without  concluding  that  he  was  an  essen- 
tially kind-hearted,  even  soft-hearted  man.  He  was 
keenly  sensitive  to  praise  and  blame,  most  affection- 
ate and  constant  with  his  friends,  generous  and  im- 
pulsive in  his  instincts,  loving  in  his  family,  simple 
and  humble  in  his  spiritual  nature,  however  question- 
ing in  his  intellect.  That  is  a  fair  summary  of 
Thackeray  as  revealed  in  his  daily  walk — in  his  let- 
ters, acts  and  thoughts.  Nothing  could  be  sweeter 
and  more  kindly  than  the  mass  of  his  writings  in 
this  regard,  pace  "  The  Book  of  Snobs  " — even  in 
such  a  mood  the  satire  is  for  the  most  part  unbitter. 
The  reminiscential  essays  continually  strike  a  tender 
note  that  vibrates  with  human  feeling  and  such  me- 
morials as  the  paper  he  wrote  on  the  deaths  of  Irving 
and  Macaulay  represent  a  frequent  vein.  Thack- 
eray's friends  are  almost  a  unit  in  this  testimony: 
Edward  Fitzgerald,  indeed — ^"  dear  old  Fltz,"  as 
Tennyson  loved  to  call  him — declares  in  a  letter  to 


THACKERAY  201 

somebody  that  he  hears  Thackeray  is  spoiled:  mean- 
ing that  his  social  success  was  too  much  for  him. 
It  is  time  that  after  the  fame  of  "  Vanity  Fair,"  its 
author  was  a  habitue  of  the  best  drawing-rooms, 
much  sought  after,  and  enjoying  it  hugely.  But 
to  read  his  letter  to  Mrs.  Brookfield  after  the  return 
home  from  such  frivolities  is  to  feel  that  the  real 
man  is  untouched.  Why  Thackeray,  with  such  a 
nature,  developed  a  satirical  bent  and  became  a  critic 
of  the  foibles  of  fashion  and  later  of  the  social  faults 
of  humanity,  is  not  so  easy  perhaps  to  say — unless 
we  beg  the  question  by  declaring  it  to  be  his  nature. 
When  he  began  his  major  fiction  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
seven  he  had  seen  much  more  of  the  seamy  side  of 
existence  than  had  Dickens  when  he  set  up  for  author. 
Thackeray  had  lost  a  fortune,  traveled,  played  Bo- 
hemian, tried  various  employments,  failed  in  a  busi- 
ness venture — in  short,  was  an  experienced  man  of 
the  world  with  eyes  wide  open  to  what  is  light,  mean, 
shifty  and  vague  in  the  sublunary  show.  "  The 
Book  of  Snobs  "  is  the  typical  early  document  ex- 
pressing the  subacidulous  tendency  of  his  power: 
"  Vanity  Fair "  is  the  full-length  statement  of  it 
in  maturity.  Yet  judging  his  life  by  and  large  (in 
contrast  with  his  work)  up  to  the  day  of  his  sudden 
death,  putting  in  evidence  all  the  testimony  from 
many  sources,  it  may  be  asserted  with  considerable 
confidence  that  William  Makepeace  Thackeray,  what- 
t?ver  we  find  him  to  be  in  his  works,  gave  the  general 


20-2     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

Impression  pcrsoiiallj  of  being  a  genial,  kind  and 
thorouglilj  sound-licartcd  man.  \Vc  may,  there- 
fore, look  at  the  work  itself,  to  extract  from  it  such 
evidence  as  it  offers,  remembering  that,  when  all  is 
said,  the  deepest  part  of  a  man,  his  true  quality, 
is  always  to  be  discovered  in  his  writings. 

First  a  word  on  the  books  secondary  to  the  four 
great  novels.  It  is  necessary  at  the  start  in  study- 
ing him  to  realize  that  Thackeray  for  years  before  he 
wrote  novels  was  an  essayist,  who,  when  he  came 
to  make  fiction  introduced  into  it  the  essay  touch 
and  point  of  view.  The  essay  manner  makes  his 
lai'ger  fiction  delightful,  is  one  of  its  chief  charms 
and  characteristics.  And  contrariwise,  the  looseness 
of  construction,  the  lack  of  careful  architecture  in 
Thackeray's  stories,  look  to  the  same  fact. 

It  can  not  justly  be  said  of  these  earlier  and  minor 
writings  that,  taken  as  a  whole,  they  reveal  a  cynic. 
They  contain  many  thiiists  at  the  foolishness  and 
knavery  of  society,  especially  that  genteel  portion 
of  it  with  which  the  writer,  by  birth,  education  and 
experience,  was  familiar.  When  Thackeray,  in  the 
thirties,  turned  to  newspaper  writing,  he  did  so  for 
practical  reasons :  he  needed  money,  and  he  used  such 
talents  as  were  his  as  a  writer,  knowing  that  the 
chances  were  better  than  in  art,  which  he  had  before 
pursued.  It  was  natural  that  he  should  have  turned 
to  account  his  social  experiences,  which  gave  him 
a  power  not  possessed  by  the  I'un  of  literary  hacks, 


THACKERAY  203 

and  which  had  been  to  some  extent  disillusioning, 
but  had  by  no  means  soured  him.  Broadly  viewed, 
the  tone  of  these  first  writings  was  genial,  the  light 
and  shade  of  human  nature — in  its  average,  as  it 
is  seen  in  the  world — was  properly  represented.  In 
fact,  often,  as  in  "  The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond," 
the  style  is  almost  that  of  burlesque,  at  moments,  of 
horse-play:  and  there  are  too  touches  of  beautiful 
young-man  pathos.  Such  a  work  is  anything  rather 
than  tart  or  worldly.  There  are  scenes  in  that 
enjoyable  story  that  read  more  like  Dickens  than 
the  Thackeray  of  "  Vanity  Fair."  The  same  re- 
mark applies,  though  in  a  different  way,  to  the  "  Yel- 
lowplush  Papers."  An  early  work  like  "  Barry  Lyn- 
don," unique  among  the  productions  of  the  young 
writer,  expresses  the  deeper  aspect  of  his  tendency  to 
depict  the  unpleasant  with  satiric  force,  to  make 
clear-cut  pictures  of  rascals,  male  and  female.  Yet 
in  this  historical  study,  the  eighteenth  century  set- 
ting relieves  the  effect  and  one  does  not  feel  that 
the  author  is  speaking  with  that  direct  earnestness 
one  encounters  in  "  Pendennis "  and  "  The  New- 
comes."  The  many  essays,  of  which  the  "  Round- 
about Papers  "  are  a  type,  exhibit  almost  exclusively 
the  sunnier  and  more  attractive  side  of  Thackeray's 
genius.  Here  and  there,  in  the  minor  fiction  of  this 
experimental  period,  there  are  premonitions  of  the 
more  drastic  treatment  of  later  years :  but  the  domi- 
nant mood  is  quite  other.      One  who  read  the  essays 


20t     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

alone,  with  no  knowledge  of  the  fiction,  would  be 
astonished  at  a  charge  of  cynicism  brought  against 
the  author. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  major  fiction:  "Vanity 
Fair,"  'Tendcnnis,"  "The  Newcomes,"  and  "Es- 
mond." Of  "The  Adventures  of  Philip"  a  later 
word  may  be  said.  "  The  Virginians  "  is  a  com- 
paratively unimportant  pendant  to  that  great  his- 
torical picture,  "  Henry  Esmond."  The  quartet 
practically  composes  tlie  fundamental  contribution 
of  Thackeray  to  the  world  of  fiction,  containing 
as  it  does  all  his  characteristic  traits.  Some  of 
them  have  been  pointed  out,  time  out  of  mind :  others, 
often  claimed,  are  either  wanting  or  their  virtue 
has  been  much  exaggerated. 

Of  the  merits  incontestable,  first  and  foremost 
may  be  mentioned  the  color  and  motion  of  Life  which 
spread  like  an  atmosphere  over  this  fiction.  By  his 
inimitable  idiom,  his  knowledge  of  the  polite  world, 
and  his  equal  knowledge  of  the  average  human  being 
irrespective  of  class  or  condition,  Thackeray  was 
able  to  make  his  chronicle  appear  the  very  truth. 
IMoreover,  for  a  second  great  merit,  he  was  able, 
quite  without  meretricious  appeals,  to  make  that 
truth  interesting.  You  follow  the  fortunes  of  the 
folk  in  a  typical  Thackeray  novel  as  you  would 
follow  a  similar  group  in  actual  life.  They  interest 
because  they  are  real — or  seem  to  be,  which,  for  the 
purposes    of   art,    is   the   same   thing.       To   read   is 


THACKERAY  205 

not  so  much  to  look  from  an  outside  place  at  a 
fictive  representation  of  existence  as  to  be  participant 
in  such  a  piece  of  life — to  feel  as  if  you  were  liv- 
ing the  story.  Only  masters  accomplish  this,  and 
it  is,  it  may  be  added,  the  specialty  of  modern 
masters. 

For  another  shining  merit:  much  of  wisdom  as- 
similated by  the  author  in  the  course  of  his  days 
is  given  forth  with  pungent  power  and  in  piquant 
garb  in  the  pages  of  these  books:  the  reader  relishes 
the  happy  statements  of  an  experience  profounder 
than  his  own,  yet  tallying  in  essentials :  Thackeray's 
remarks  seem  to  gather  up  into  final  shape  the  scat- 
tered oracles  of  the  years.  Gratitude  goes  out  to 
an  author  who  can  thus  condense  and  refine  one's 
own  inarticulate  conclusions.  The  mental  palate 
is  tickled  by  this,  while  the  taste  is  titillated  by  the 
grace  and  fitness  of  the  style. 

Yet  in  connection  with  this  quality  Is  a  habit 
which  already  makes  Thackeray  seem  of  an  older 
time — a  trifle  archaic  in  technique.  I  refer  to  the 
intrusion  of  the  author  into  the  story  in  first-per- 
sonal comment  and  criticism.  This  is  tabooed  by 
the  present-day  realist  canons.  It  weakens  the  illu- 
sion, say  the  artists  of  our  own  day,  this  entrance 
of  an  actual  personality  upon  the  stage  of  the 
imagined  scene.  Thackeray  is  guilty  of  this  lovable 
sin  to  a  greater  degree  than  is  Dickens,  and  it  may 
be  added  here  that,  while  the  latter  has   so   often 


206    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

been  called  preacher  in  contrast  with  Thackeray 
tlic  artist,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Thackeray  moralizes 
in  tlie  fashion  described  fully  as  much :  tlie  differ- 
ence being  that  he  does  it  with  lighter  touch 
and  with  less  strenuosity  and  obvious  seriousness : 
is  more  consistently  amusing  in  the  act  of  in- 
struction. 

Thackeray  again  has  less  story  to  tell  than  his 
greatest  contemporary  and  never  gained  a  sure  hand 
in  construction,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
his  one  success  in  plot,  "  Henry  Esmond."  Nothing 
is  more  apparent  than  the  loose  texture  of  "  Vanity 
Fair,"  where  two  stories  centering  in  the  antithetic 
women,  Becky  and  Amelia,  are  held  together  chron- 
icle fashion,  not  in  the  nexus  of  an  organism  of 
close  weave.  But  this  very  looseness,  where  there 
is  such  superlative  power  of  characterization  with 
plenty  of  invention  in  incident,  adds  to  the  verisimil- 
itude and  attraction  of  the  book.  The  impression 
of  life  is  all  the  more  vivid,  because  of  the  lack  of 
proportioned  progress  to  a  climax.  The  story  con- 
ducts itself  and  ends  much  as  does  life :  people  come 
in  and  out  and  when  Finis  is  written,  we  feel  we 
may  see  them  again — as  indeed  often  happens,  for 
Thackeray  used  the  pleasant  device  of  re-introducing 
favorite  characters  such  as  Pendennis,  Warrington 
and  the  descendants  thereof,  and  it  adds  distinctly 
to  the  reality  of  the  ensemble. 

"  Vanity  Fair "  has  most  often  been  given  pre- 


THACKERAY  207 

cedence  over  the  other  novels  of  contemporary  life : 
but  for  individual  scenes  and  strength  of  character 
drawing  both  "  Pendennis  "  and  "  The  Newcomes  " 
set  up  vigorous  claims.  If  there  be  no  single  triumph 
in  female  portraiture  like  Becky  Sharp,  Ethel  New- 
come  (on  the  side  of  virtue)  is  a  far  finer  woman 
than  the  somewhat  insipid  Amelia :  and  no  personage 
in  the  Mayfair  book  is  more  successful  and  beloved 
than  Major  Pendennis  or  Colonel  Newcome.  Also, 
the  atmosphere  of  these  two  pictures  seems  mellower, 
less  sharp,  while  as  organic  structures  they  are  both 
superior  to  "  Vanity  Fair."  Perhaps  the  supremacy 
of  the  last-named  is  due  most  of  all  to  the  fact  that 
a  wonderfully  drawn  evil  character  has  more  fascina- 
tion than  a  noble  one  of  workmanship  as  fine.  Or 
is  it  that  such  a  type  calls  forth  the  novelist's  powers 
to  the  full.''  If  so,  it  were,  in  a  manner,  a  reproach. 
But  it  is  more  important  to  say  that  all  three  books 
are  delightfully  authentic  studies  of  upper-class  so- 
ciety in  England  as  Thackeray  knew  it:  the  social 
range  is  comparatively  restricted,  for  even  the  ras- 
cals arc  shabby-genteel.  But  the  exposure  of  hu- 
man nature  (which  depends  upon  keen  observation 
within  a  prescribed  boundary)  is  wide  and  deep: 
a  story-teller  can  penetrate  just  as  far  into  the 
arcana  of  the  human  spirit  if  he  confine  himself  to 
a  class  as  if  he  surveyed  all  mankind.  But  mental 
limitations  result:  the  point  of  view  is  that  of  the 
gentleman-class:  the  ideas   of  the  personal  relation 


208    MASTERS  Or  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

to  one's  self,  one's  fellow  men  and  one's  Maker  are 
those  natural  to  a  person  of  that  station.  The 
charming  poem  which  the  author  set  as  Finis  to  "  Dr. 
Birch  and  His  Young  Friends,"  with  its  concluding 
lines,  is  an  unconscious  expression  of  the  form  in 
which  he  conceived  human  duty.  The  "  And  so, 
please  God,  a  gentleman,"  was  the  cardinal  clause 
in  his  creed  and  all  his  work  proves  it.  It  is  wiser 
to  be  thankful  that  a  man  of  genius  was  at  hand 
to  voice  the  view,  than  to  cavil  at  its  narrow  out- 
look. In  literature,  in-look  is  quite  as  important. 
Thackeray  drew  what  he  felt  and  saw,  and  like  Jane 
Austen,  is  to  be  understood  within  his  limitations. 
Nor  did  he  ever  forget  that,  because  pleasure-giving 
was  the  object  of  his  art,  it  wa.s  his  duty  so  to  present 
life  as  to  make  it  somehow  attractive,  worth  while. 
The  point  is  worth  urging,  for  not  a  little  nonsense 
has  been  written  concerning  the  absolute  veracity  of 
Thackeray's  pictures:  as  if  he  sacrificed  all  pleasur- 
ableness  to  the  modem  IMoloch,  truth.  Neither  he 
nor  any  other  great  novelist  reproduces  Life  ver- 
bat'mi  et  literatim.  Trollope,  in  his  somewhat  un- 
satisfactory biograph}'  of  his  fellow  fictionist,  very 
rightly  puts  his  finger  on  a  certain  scene  in  "  Vanity 
Fair  "  in  which  Sir  Pitt  Crawley  figures,  which  de- 
parts widely  from  reality.  The  traditional  com- 
parison between  the  two  novelists,  which  represents 
Dickens  as  ever  caricaturing,  Thackeray  as  the  pho- 
tographer,  is   coming  to  be   recognized   as   foolish. 


THACKERAY  209 

It  is  all  merely  a  question  of  degree,  as  has  been  said. 
It  being  the  artist's  business  to  show  a  few  of  the 
symbols  of  life  out  of  the  vast  amount  of  raw  mate- 
rial offered,  he  differs  in  the  main  from  his  brother 
artist  in  the  symbols  he  selects.  No  one  of  them 
presents  everything — if  he  did,  he  were  no  artist. 
Thackeray  approaches  nearer  than  Dickens,  it  is 
true,  to  the  average  appearances  of  life ;  but  is  no 
more  a  literal  copyist  than  the  creator  of  Mrs. 
Gamp.  He  was  rather  one  of  art's  most  capable 
exemplars  in  the  arduous  employment  of  seeming- 
true. 

It  must  be  added  that  his  technique  was  more 
careless  than  an  artist  of  anything  like  his  caliber 
would  have  permitted  himself  to-day.  The  audience 
was  less  critical:  not  only  has  the  art  of  fiction  been 
evolved  into  a  finer  finish,  but  gradually  the  court 
of  judgment  made  up  of  a  select  reading  public, 
has  come  to  decide  with  much  more  of  profes- 
sional knowledge.  Thus,  technique  in  fiction  is  ex- 
pected and  given.  So  much  of  gain  there  has  been, 
in  spite  of  all  the  vulgarization  of  taste  which  has 
followed  in  the  wake  of  cheap  magazines  and  news- 
papers. In  "  Vanity  Fair,"  for  example,  there  are 
blemishes  which  a  careful  revision  wovdd  never  have 
suffered  to  remain  :  the  same  is  true  of  most  of  Thack- 
eray's books.  Like  Dickens,  Thackeray  was  exposed 
to  all  the  danger  of  the  Twenty  Parts  method  of 
publication.       He  began  his   stories   without  seeing 


210    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

the  end ;  in  one  of  them  lie  is  humorously  plaintive 
over  the  trouble  of  making  this  manner  of  fiction. 
While  "  Vanity  Fair  "  is,  of  course,  written  in  the 
impersonal  third  person,  at  least  one  passage  is  put 
into  the  mouth  of  a  character  in  the  book:  an  ex- 
traordinary slip  for  such  a  novelist. 

But  peccadilloes  such  as  these,  which  it  is  well  to 
realize  in  view  of  the  absurd  claims  to  artistic  im- 
peccability for  Thackeray  made  by  rash  admirers, 
melt  away  into  nothing  when  one  recalls  Rawdon 
Crawley's  horsewhipping  of  the  Marquis ;  George 
Osborn's  departure  for  battle.  Colonel  Newcome's 
death,  or  the  incomparable  scene  where  Lady  Castle- 
wood  welcomes  home  the  wandering  Esmond ;  that 
"  rapture  of  reconciliation  "  !  It  is  by  such  things 
that  great  novelists  live,  and  it  may  be  doubted  if 
their  errors  are  ever  counted  against  them,  if  only 
they  can  create  in  this  fashion. 

In  speaking  of  Thackeray's  unskilful  construction 
the  reference  is  to  architectonics ;  in  the  power  of 
particular  scenes  it  is  hard  to  name  his  superior. 
He  has  both  the  pictorial  and  the  dramatic  sense. 
The  care  with  which  "  Esmond  "  was  planned  and 
executed  suggests  too  that,  had  he  taken  his  art 
more  seriously  and  given  needed  time  to  each  of  the 
great  books,  he  might  have  become  one  of  the  masters 
in  that  prime  excellence  of  the  craft,  the  excellence 
of  proportion,  progress  and  climax.  He  never  quite 
brought  himself  to  adopt  the  regular  modem  method 


THACKERAY  211 

of  scenario.  "  Philip,"  his  last  full  length  fiction, 
may  be  cited  as  proof. 

Yet  it  may  be  that  he  would  have  given  increased 
attention  to  construction  had  he  lived  a  long  life. 
It  is  worth  noting  that  when  the  unfinished  "  Denis 
Duval "  dropt  from  a  hand  made  inert  by  death, 
the  general  plan,  wherefrom  an  idea  of  its  architect- 
ure could  be  got,  was  among  his  effects. 

To  say  a  word  now  of  Thackeray's  style.  There 
is  practical  unanimity  of  opinion  as  to  this.  Thack- 
eray had  the  effect  of  writing  like  a  cultivated  gentle- 
man not  self-consciously  making  literature.  He  was 
tolerant  of  colloquial  concessions  that  never  lapsed 
into  vulgarity ;  even  his  slips  and  slovenlinesses  are 
those  of  the  well-bred.  To  pass  from  him  back  to 
Richardson  is  to  realize  how  stiffly  correct  is  the 
latter.  Thackeray  has  flexibility,  music,  vernac- 
ular felicity  and  a  deceptive  ease.  He  had,  too, 
the  flashing  strokes,  the  inspirational  sallies  which 
characterize  the  style  of  writers  like  Lamb,  Steven- 
son and  Meredith.  Fitness,  balance,  breeding  and 
harmony  are  his  chief  qualities.  To  say  that  he 
never  sinned  or  nodded  would  be  to  deny  that  he 
was  human.  He  cut  his  cloth  to  fit  the  desired 
garment  and  is  a  modern  English  master  of  prose 
designed  to  reproduce  the  habit  and  accent  of  the 
polite  society  of  his  age.  In  his  hortatory  asides 
and  didactic  moralizings  with  their  thees  and  thous 
and  yeas,  he  is  still  the  fine  essayist,  like  Fielding 


212     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

in  his  cigliteeiitli  century  prefatory  exordiums.  And 
here  is  undoubtedly  one  of  his  strongest  appeals 
to  the  world  of  readers,  whether  or  no  it  makes  him 
less  perfect  a  fictionist.  The  diction  of  a  Thack- 
eray is  one  of  the  honorable  national  assets  of  his 
race. 

Thackeray's  men  and  women  talk  as  they  might 
be  expected  to  talk  in  life;  each  in  his  own  idiom, 
class  and  idiosyncrasy.  And  in  the  descriptions 
which  furnish  atmosphere,  in  which  his  creatures  may 
live  and  breathe  and  have  their  being,  the  hand  of 
the  artist  of  words  is  equally  revealed.  Both  for 
dialogue  and  narration  the  gift  is  valid,  at  times 
superb.  It  would  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  if 
Thackeray  had  exercised  the  care  in  revision  be- 
stowed by  later  reputable  authors,  his  style  might  not 
have  been  improved:  beyond  question  it  would  have 
been,  in  the  narrow  sense.  But  the  correction  of 
trifling  mistakes  is  one  thing,  a  change  in  pattern 
another.  The  retouching,  although  satisfying  gram- 
mar here  and  there,  might  have  dimmed  the  vernac- 
ular value  of  his  speech. 

But  what  of  Thackeray's  view,  his  vision  of  things.'' 
Does  he  bear  down  unduly  upon  poor  imperfect  hu- 
manity.'' and  what  was  his  purpose  in  satire.''  If 
he  is  unfair  in  the  representation  his  place  .among 
the  great  should  suff^er;  since  the  truly  great  ob- 
server of  life  does  general  justice  to  humankind  in 
bi9  harmonious  portrayal. 


THACKERAY  213 

We  have  already  spoken  of  Thackeray's  sensitive 
nature  as  revealed  through  all  available  means :  he 
conveys  the  impression  of  a  suppressed  sentimental- 
ist, even  in  his  satire.  And  this  establishes  a  pre- 
sumption that  the  same  man  is  to  be  discovered  in 
the  novels,  the  work  being  an  unconscious  revelation 
of  the  worker.  The  characteristic  books  are  of 
satirical  bent,  that  must  be  granted:  Thackeray's 
purpose,  avowed  and  implicit  in  the  stories,  is  that  of 
a  Juvenal  castigating  with  a  smiling  mouth  the  evils 
of  society.  With  keen  eye  he  sees  the  weaknesses 
incident  to  place  and  power,  to  the  affectations  of 
fashion  or  the  corruptions  of  the  world,  the  flesh 
and  the  devil.  Nobody  of  commonsense  will  deny 
that  here  is  a  welcome  service  if  performed  with  skill 
and  fair-mindedness  in  the  interests  of  truth.  The 
only  query  would  be:  Is  the  picture  undistorted? 
If  Thackeray's  studies  leave  a  bad  taste  in  the  mouth, 
if  their  eff'ect  is  depressing,  if  one  feels  as  a  result 
that  there  is  neither  virtue  nor  magnanimity  in  woman, 
and  that  man  is  incapable  of  honor,  bravery,  justice 
and  tenderness — then  the  novelist  may  be  called  cynic. 
He  is  not  a  wholesome  writer,  however  acceptable 
for  art  or  admirable  for  genius.  Nor  will  the  mass 
of  mankind  believe  in  and  love  him. 

Naturally  we  are  here  on  ground  where  the  per- 
sonal equation  influences  judgment.  There  can 
never  be  comyilete  agreement.  Some  readers,  and 
excellent  people  they   are,  will   always  be  off'ended 


'211     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

by  what  they  never  tire  of  calhng  the  worldly  tone 
of  Thackeray ;  to  others,  he  will  be  as  lovable  in 
his  view  of  life  as  he  is  amusing.  Speaking,  then, 
merely  for  myself,  it  seems  to  me  that  for  mature 
folk  wlio  have  had  some  experience  with  humanity, 
Thackeray  is  a  charming  companion  whose  heart  is 
as  sound  as  his  pen  is  incisive.  The  very  young 
as  a  rule  are  not  ready  for  him  and  (so  far  as  my 
observation  goes)  do  not  much  care  for  him.  That 
his  intention  was  to  help  the  cause  of  kindness,  truth 
and  justice  in  the  world  is  apparent.  It  is  late  in 
the  day  to  defend  his  way  of  crying  up  the  good 
by  a  frank  exhibition  of  the  evil.  Good  and  bad 
are  never  confused  by  him,  and  Taine  was  right 
in  calling  him  above  all  a  moralist.  But  being  by 
instinct  a  realist  too,  he  gave  vent  to  his  passion 
for  truth-telling  so  far  as  he  dared,  in  a  day  when 
it  was  far  less  fashionable  to  do  this  than  it  now 
is.  A  remark  in  the  preface  to  "  Pendennis "  is 
full  of  suggestion :  "  Since  the  author  of  '  Tom 
Jones  '  was  buried,  no  writer  of  fiction  among  us 
has  been  permitted  to  depict  to  his  utmost  power 
a  Man.  We  must  drape  him  and  give  him  a  certain 
conventional  simper.  Society  will  not  tolerate  the 
Natural  in  our  Art." 

It  will  not  do  to  say  (as  is  often  said)  that 
Thackeray  could  not  draw  an  admirable  or  perfect 
woman.  If  he  did  not  leave  us  a  perfect  one,  it 
was   perhaps    for   the   reason   alleged   to   have   been 


THACKERAY  215 

given  by  Mr.  Howells  when  he  was  charged  with 
the  same  misdemeanor:  he  was  waiting  for  the  Lord 
to  do  it  first !  But  Thackeray  does  no  injustice  to 
the  sex:  if  Amelia  be  stupid  (which  is  matter  of 
debate),  Helen  Warrington  is  not,  but  rather  a 
very  noble  creature  built  on  a  large  plan :  whatever 
the  small  blemishes  of  Lady  Castlewood  she  is  in- 
delible in  memory  for  character  and  charm.  And 
so  with  others  not  a  few.  Becky  and  Beatrix  are 
merely  the  reverse  of  the  picture.  And  there  is  a 
similar  balance  in  the  delineation  of  men:  Colonel 
Newcome  over  against  Captain  Costigan,  and  many 
a  couple  more.  Thackeray  does  not  fall  into  the 
mistake  of  making  his  spotted  characters  all-black. 
Who  does  not  find  something  likable  in  the  Fotherin- 
gay  and  in  the  Campaigner.?  Even  a  Barry  Lyn- 
don has  the  redeeming  quality  of  courage.  And 
surely  we  adore  Beatrix,  with  all  her  faults.  Major 
Pendennis  is  a  thoroughgoing  old  worldling,  but  it 
is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  species  of  fondness  for 
him.  Jos.  Sedley  is  very  much  an  ass,  but  one's  smile 
at  him  is  full  of  tolerance.  Yes,  the  worst  of  them 
all,  the  immortal  Becky  (who  was  so  plainly  liked 
by  her  maker)  awakens  sympathy  in  the  reader  when 
routed  in  her  fortunes,  black-leg  though  she  be.  She 
cared  for  her  husband,  after  her  fashion,  and  she 
plays  the  game  of  Bad  Luck  in  a  way  far  from  despic- 
able. Nor  is  that  easy-going,  commonplace  scoun- 
drel, Rawdon,  with  his  dog-like  devotion  to  the  same 


2\6     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

Becky,  tlenied  liis  touch  of  higher  liuiimnitj.  Be- 
hind all  these  is  a  large  tolerance,  an  intellectual 
breadth,  a  spiritual  comprehension  that  is  merciful 
to  the  sinner,  while  never  condoning  the  sin.  Thack- 
eray is  therefore  more  than  story-teller  or  fine  writer: 
a  sane  observer  of  the  Human  Comedy ;  a  satirist 
in  the  broad  sense,  devoting  himself  to  revealing  so- 
ciety to  itself  and  for  its  instruction.  It  is  easy 
to  use  negations :  to  say  he  did  not  know  nor  sympa- 
thize with  the  middle  class  nor  the  lower  and  out- 
cast classes  as  did  Dickens ;  that  his  interest  was 
in  peccadilloes  and  sins,  not  in  courageous  virtues : 
and  that  he  judged  the  world  from  a  club  window. 
But  this  gets  us  nowhere  and  is  aside  from  the  critic's 
chief  business :  which  is  that  of  an  appreciative  ex- 
planation of  his  abiding  power  and  charm.  This 
has  now  been  essaj^ed.  Thackeray  was  too  great 
as  man  and  artist  not  to  know  that  it  was  his  func- 
tion to  present  life  in  such  wise  that  while  a  pleasure 
of  recognition  should  follow  the  delineation,  another 
and  higher  pleasure  should  also  result:  the  surpris- 
ing pleasure  of  beauty.  "  Fiction,"  he  declared, 
"  has  no  business  to  exist,  unless  it  be  more  beautiful 
than  reality."  And  again :  "  The  first  quality  of 
an  artist  is  to  have  a  large  heart."  With  which 
revelatory  utterances  may  be  placed  part  of  the  noble 
sentence  closing  "The  Book  of  Snobs":  "If  fun 
is  good,  truth  is  better  still,  and  love  best  of  all." 
To  read  him  with  open  mind  is  to  feel  assured  that 


THACKERAY  217 

his  works,  taken  in  their  entirety,  reflect  these  hu- 
mane sentiments.  It  is  a  pity,  therefore,  for  any 
reader  of  the  best  fiction,  through  intense  apprecia- 
tion of  Dickens  or  for  any  other  reason,  to  cut 
himself  off  from  such  an  enlightening  student  of 
humanity  and  master  of  imaginative  literature. 


CHAPTER  X 

GEORGE  ELIOT 

George  Eliot  began  fiction  a  decade  later  than 
Thackeray,  but  seems  more  than  a  decade  nearer  to 
us.  With  her  the  full  pulse  of  modern  realism  is 
felt  a-throbbing.  There  is  no  more  of  the  ye^s  and 
thous  with  which,  when  he  would  make  an  exordium, 
Thackeray  addressed  the  world — a  fashion  long  since 
laid  aside.  Eliot  drew  much  nearer  to  the  truth, 
the  quiet,  homely  verity  of  her  scenes  is  a  closer  ap- 
proximation to  life,  realizes  life  more  vitally  than 
the  most  veracious  page  of  "  Vanity  Fair."  Not 
that  the  great  woman  novelist  made  the  mistake  of 
a  slavish  imitation  of  the  actual :  that  capital,  lively 
scene  in  the  early  part  of  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss," 
where  Mrs.  Tulliver's  connections  make  known  to  us 
their  delightsome  personalities,  is  not  a  mere  tran- 
script from  life ;  and  all  the  better  for  that.  Never- 
theless, the  critic  can  easily  discover  a  difference  be- 
tween Thackeray  and  Eliot  in  this  regard,  and  the 
ten  years  between  them  (as  we  saw  in  the  case  of 
Dickens  and  Thackeray)  are  partly  responsible: 
technique  and  ideal  in  literary  art  were  changing 
fast.      George  Eliot  was  a  truer  realist.      She  took 

218 


GEORGE  ELIOT  219 

more  seriously  her  aim  of  interpreting  life,  and  had 
a  higher  conception  of  her  artistic  mission.  Dickens 
in  his  beautiful  tribute  to  Thackeray  on  the  latter's 
death,  speaks  of  the  failure  of  the  author  of  "  Pen- 
dennis  "  to  take  his  mission,  his  genius,  seriously: 
there  was  justice  in  the  remark.  Yet  we  heard  from 
the  preface  to  "  Pendennis "  that  Thackeray  had 
the  desire  to  depict  a  typical  man  of  society  with  the 
faithful  frankness  of  a  Fielding,  and  since  him, 
Thackeray  states,  never  again  used.  But  the  novel- 
ist's hearers  were  not  prepared,  the  time  was  not 
yet  ripe,  and  the  novelist  himself  lacked  the  courage, 
though  he  had  the  clear  vision.  With  Eliot,  we 
reach  the  psychologic  moment:  that  deepest  truth, 
the  truth  of  character,  exhibited  in  its  mainsprings 
of  impulse  and  thought,  came  with  her  into  English 
fiction  as  it  had  never  before  appeared.  It  would 
hardly  be  overstatement  to  say  that  modern  psy- 
chology in  the  complete  sense  as  method  and  interest 
begins  in  the  Novel  with  Eliot.  For  there  is  a  radical 
difference,  not  only  between  the  Novel  which  exploits 
plot  and  that  which  exploits  character:  but  also 
between  that  which  sees  character  in  terms  of  life 
and  that  which  sees  it  in  terms  of  soul.  Eliot's 
fiction  does  the  latter:  life  to  her  means  character 
building,  and  has  its  meaning  only  as  an  arena  for 
spiritual  struggle.  Success  or  failure  means  but 
this:  have  I  grown  in  my  higher  nature,  has  my 
existence  shown  on  the  whole  an  upward  tendency? 


220    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISPI  NOVEL 

If  so,  well  and  good.  If  not,  whatever  of  place  or 
power  nui}'  be  mine,  I  am  among  the  world's  failures, 
having  missod  the  goal.  This  view,  steadily  to  be 
encountered  in  all  her  fiction,  gives  it  the  grave  qual- 
ity, the  deep  undertone  and,  be  it  confessed,  at  times 
the  almost  Methodistic  manner,  which  mark  this 
woman's  worth  in  its  weakness  and  its  notable 
strength.  In  her  early  days,  long  before  she  made 
fiction,  she  was  morbidly  religious;  she  became  in  the 
fulness  of  time  one  of  the  intellectually  emancipated. 
Yet,  emotionally,  spiritually,  she  remained  to  the 
end  an  intensely  religious  person.  Conduct,  aspira- 
tion, communion  of  souls,  these  were  to  her  always 
the  realities.  If  Thackeray's  motto  was  Be  good, 
and  Dickens',  Do  good,  Eliot's  might  be  expressed 
as:  Make  me  good!  Consider  for  a  moment  and 
you  will  see  that  these  phrases  stand  successivelj'^ 
for  a  convention,  an  action  and  an  aspiration. 

The  life  of  Mary  Ann  Evans  falls  for  critical 
purposes  into  three  well-defined  divisions :  the  early 
days  of  country  life  with  home  and  family  and 
school ;  her  career  as  a  savant ;  and  the  later  years, 
when  she  performed  her  service  as  story-teller.  Un- 
questionably, the  first  period  was  most  important 
in  influencing  her  genius.  It  was  in  the  home  days 
at  GrifF,  the  school  days  at  Nuneaton  nearby,  that 
those  deepest,  most  permanent  impressions  were  ab- 
sorbed which  are  given  out  in  the  finest  of  her  fictions. 
Hence  came  the  primal  inspiration  which  produced 


GEORGE  ELIOT  221 

her  best.  And  it  is  because  she  drew  most  generously 
upon  her  younger  life  in  her  earlier  works  that  it 
is  they  which  are  most  likely  to  survive  the  shocks 
of  Time. 

The  experiences  of  Eliot's  childhood,  youth  and 
3^oung  womanhood  were  those  which  taught  her  the 
bottom  facts  about  middle-class  country  life  in  the 
mid-century,  and  in  a  mid-county  of  England; 
Shakspere's  county  of  Warwick.  Those  ex- 
periences gave  her  such  sympathetic  comprehension 
of  the  human  case  in  that  environment  that  she  be- 
came its  chronicler,  as  Dickens  had  become  the  chron- 
icler of  the  lower  middle-class  of  the  cities.  Un- 
erringly, she  generalized  from  the  microcosm  of  War- 
wickshire to  the  life  of  the  world  and  guessed  the 
universal  human  heart.  With  utmost  sympathy, 
joined  with  a  nice  power  of  scrutiny,  she  saw  and 
understood  the  character-types  of  the  village,  when 
there  was  a  village  life  which  has  since  passed  away : 
the  yeoman,  the  small  farmer,  the  operative  in  the 
mill,  the  peasant,  the  squire  and  the  parson,  the  petty 
tradesman,  the  man  of  the  professions:  the  worker 
with  his  hands  at  many  crafts. 

She  matured  through  travel,  books  and  social  con- 
tact, her  knowledge  was  greatly  extended :  she  came 
to  be,  in  a  sense,  a  cultured  woman  of  the  world, 
a  learned  person.  Her  later  books  reflected  this ; 
they  depict  the  so-called  higher  strata  of  English 
society  as  in  "  Middlemarch,"  or,  as  in  "  Romola," 


222     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

give  an  liistorical  picture  of  another  time  in  a  for- 
eign land.  The  woman  who  was  gracious  hostess 
at  those  famous  Sunday  afternoons  at  the  Priory 
seems  to  have  little  likeness  to  the  frail,  shy,  country 
girl  in  Griff — seems,  too,  far  more  important ;  yet 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  all  this  later  work  re- 
veals such  mastery  of  the  human  heart  or  comes 
from  such  an  imperative  source  of  expression  as  do 
the  earlier  novels,  "  Adam  Bedc  "  and  "  The  Mill  on 
the  Floss."  For  human  nature  is  one  and  the  same 
in  Griff  or  London  or  Florence,  as  all  the  ampli- 
tude of  the  sky  is  mirrored  in  the  dewdrop.  And 
although  Eliot  became  in  later  life  a  more  accurate 
reporter  of  the  intellectual  unrest  of  her  day,  and 
had  probed  deeper  into  the  mystery  and  the  burden 
of  this  unintelligible  world,  great  novels  are  not 
necessarily  made  in  that  way  and  the  majority  of 
those  who  love  her  cleave  to  the  less  burdened,  more 
unforced  expression  of  her  power. 

In  those  early  days,  moreover,  her  attitude  towards 
life  was  established:  it  meant  a  wish  to  improve  the 
"  complaining  millions  of  men."  Love  went  hand 
in  hand  with  understanding.  It  may  well  be  that 
the  somberly  grave  view  of  humanity  and  of  the 
universe  at  large  which  came  to  be  hers,  although 
strengthened  by  the  posltivistic  trend  of  her  mature 
studies,  was  generated  in  her  sickly  youth  and  a  re- 
action from  the  narrow  theologic  thought  with  which 
she   was   then   surrounded.       Always    frail — subject 


GEORGE  ELIOT  223 

through  life  to  distressing  iHness — it  would  not  be 
fair  to  ask  of  this  woman  an  optimism  of  the  Mark 
Tapley  stripe.  In  part,  the  grave  outlook  was 
physical,  temperamental:  but  also  it  was  an  ex- 
pression of  a  swiftly  approaching  mood  of  the  late 
nineteenth  century.  And  the  beginning  can  be  traced 
back  to  the  autumn  evenings  in  the  big  farmhouse 
at  GrifF  when,  as  a  mere  child,  she  wrestled  or  prayed 
with  what  she  called  her  sick  soul.  That  stern, 
upright  farmer  father  of  hers  seems  the  dominant 
factor  in  her  make-up,  although  the  iron  of  her  blood 
was  tempered  by  the  livelier,  more  mundane  qualities 
of  her  sprightly  mother,  towards  whom  we  look  for 
the  source  of  the  daughter's  superb  gift  of  humor. 
Whatever  the  component  parts  of  father  and  mother 
in  her,  and  however  large  that  personal  variation 
which  is  genius,  of  this  we  may  be  comfortably  sure : 
the  deepest  in  the  books,  whether  regarded  as  pres- 
entation of  life  or  as  interpretation,  came  from  the 
early  Warwickshire  years. 

Gradually  came  that  mental  eclair cissement  which 
produced  the  editor,  the  magazinist,  the  translator 
of  Strauss.  The  friendship  with  the  Brays  more  than 
any  one  thing  marks  the  external  cause  of  this  awak- 
ening: but  it  was  latent,  this  response  to  the  world 
of  thought  and  of  scholarship,  and  certain  to  be 
called  out  sooner  or  later.  Our  chief  interest  in 
it  is  due  to  the  query  how  much  it  ministered  to 
her   coming   career    as    creative    author    of    fiction. 


22A    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

George  Eliot  at  tliis  period  looked  perilously  like 
a  Blue  Stocking,  Tlie  range  and  variety  of  her 
reading  and  the  severely  intellectual  nature  of  her 
pursuits  justify  the  assertion.  Was  this  well  for 
the  novelist? 

The  reply  might  be  a  paradox :  yes  and  no.  This 
learning  imparted  to  Eliot's  works  a  breadth  of 
vision  that  is  tonic  and  wins  the  respect  of  the 
judicious.  It  helps  her  to  escape  from  that  bane 
of  the  woman  novelist — excessive  sentiment  without 
intellectual  orientation.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  times  when  she  appears  to  be  writing  a 
polemic,  not  a  novel :  when  the  tone  becomes  didactic, 
the  movement  heavy — when  the  work  seems  self-con- 
scious and  over-intellectualized.  Nor  can  it  be  de- 
nied that  this  tendency  grew  on  Eliot,  to  the  injury 
of  her  latest  work.  There  is  a  simple  kind  of  ex- 
hortation in  the  "  Clerical  Scenes,"  but  it  disappears 
in  the  earliest  novels,  onl}'  to  reappear  in  stories  like 
"  Daniel  Deronda."  Any  and  all  culture  that  comes 
to  a  large,  original  nature  (and  such  was  Eliot's) 
should  be  for  the  good  of  the  literary  product: 
learning  in  the  narrower,  more  technical  sense, 
is  perhaps  likely  to  do  harm.  Here  and  there 
there  is  a  reminder  of  the  critic-reviewer  in  her 
fiction. 

George  Eliot's  intellectual  development  during  her 
last  years  widened  her  work  and  strengthened  her 
comprehensive  grasp  of  life.      She  gained  in  inter- 


GEORGE  ELIOT  225 

pretation  thereby.  There  will,  however,  always  be 
those  who  hold  that  it  would  have  been  better  for 
her  reputation  had  she  written  nothing  after  "  Mid- 
dlemarch,"  or  even  after  "  Felix  Holt."  Those  who 
object  on  principle  to  her  agnosticism,  would  also 
add  that  the  negative  nature  of  her  philosophy,  her 
lack  of  what  is  called  definite  religious  convictions, 
had  its  share  in  injuring  materially  her  maturest 
fiction.  The  vitality  or  charm  of  a  novel,  however, 
is  not  necessarily  impaired  because  the  author  holds 
such  views.  It  is  more  pertinent  to  take  the  books 
as  they  are,  in  chronologic  order,  to  point  out  so  far 
as  possible  their  particular  merits. 

And  first,  the  "  Scenes  from  Clerical  Life."  It  is 
interesting  to  the  student  of  this  novelist  that  her 
writing  of  fiction  was  suggested  to  her  by  Lewes, 
and  that  she  tried  her  hand  at  a  tale  when  she  was 
not  far  from  forty  years  old.  The  question  will 
intrude:  would  a  genuine  fiction-maker  need  to  be 
thus  prodded  by  a  friend,  and  refrain  from  any  in- 
dependent attempt  up  to  a  period  so  late.''  Yet  it 
will  not  do  to  answer  glibly  in  the  negative.  Too 
many  examples  of  late  beginning  and  fine  fiction  as 
a  consequence  are  furnished  by  English  literature  to 
make  denial  safe.  We  have  seen  Defoe  and  Rich- 
ardson and  a  number  of  later  novelists  breaking  the 
rules — if  any  such  exist.  No  one  can  now  read  the 
"  Clerical  Scenes  "  without  discovering  in  them  quali- 
ties of  head  and  heart  which,  when  allowed  an  en- 


226    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

larged  canvas  and  backed  by  a  sure  tocliniquc,  could 
be  counted  on  to  make  worthy  fiction.  The  quiet 
vilhige  life  glows  softly  under  the  sympathetic  touch 
of  a  true  painter. 

A  recent  reading  of  this  first  book  showed  more 
clearly  than  ever  the  unequalness  of  merit  in  the 
three  stories,  their  strong  didactic  bent,  and  the 
charmingly  faithful  observation  which  for  the  pres- 
ent-day reader  is  their  greatest  attraction.  The  first 
and  simplest,  "  The  Sad  Fortunes  of  the  Rev.  Amos 
Barton,"  is  by  far  the  best.  The  poorest  is  the 
second,  "  Mr.  Gilfil's  Love  Story,"  which  has  touches 
of  conventional  melodrama  in  a  framework  reminis- 
cent of  earlier  fictionists  like  Disraeli.  "  Janet's 
Repentance,"  with  its  fine  central  character  of  the 
unhappy  wedded  wife,  is  strong,  sincere,  appealing; 
and  much  of  the  local  color  admirable.  But — per- 
haps because  there  is  more  attempt  at  story-telling, 
more  plot — the  narrative  falls  below  the  beautiful, 
quiet  chronicle  of  the  days  of  Amos :  an  exquisite 
portrayal  of  an  average  man  who  yet  stands  for 
humanity's  best.  The  tale  is  significant  as  a  pre- 
lude to  Eliot's  coming  work,  containing,  in  the  seed, 
those  qualities  which  were  to  make  her  noteworthy. 
Perusing  the  volume  to-day,  we  can  hardly  say  that 
it  appears  an  epoch-making  production  in  fiction, 
the  declaration  of  a  new  talent  in  modern  literature. 
But  much  has  happened  in  fiction  during  the  half 
century  since  185T,  and  we  are  not  in  a  position  to 


GEORGE  ELIOT  227 

judge  the  feeling  of  those  who  then  began  to  follow 
the  fortunes  of  the  Reverend  Amos. 

But  it  is  not  difficult  for  the  twentieth  centuiy 
reader,  even  if  blase,  to  understand  that  "  Adam 
Bede,"  published  when  its  author  was  forty,  aroused 
a  furore  of  admiration :  it  still  holds  general  atten- 
tion, and  many  whose  opinion  is  worth  having,  re- 
gard it  with  respect,  affection,  even  enthusiasm. 

The  broader  canvas  was  exactly  what  the  novelist 
needed  to  show  her  power  of  characterization,  her 
ability  to  build  up  her  picture  by  countless  little 
touches  guided  by  the  most  unflinching  faith  in  de- 
tail and  given  vibrancy  by  the  sympathy  which  in 
all  George  Eliot's  fiction  is  like  the  air  you  breathe. 
Then,  too,  as  an  appeal  to  the  general,  there  is 
more  of  story  interest,  although  neither  here  nor 
in  any  story  to  follow,  does  plot  come  first  with  a 
writer  whose  chief  interest  is  always  character,  and 
its  development.  The  autobiographic  note  deepens 
and  gives  at  once  verity  and  intensity  to  the  novel; 
here,  as  in  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  "  which  was 
to  follow  the  next  year,  Eliot  first  gave  free  play 
to  that  emotional  seizure  of  her  own  past  to  which 
reference  has  been  made.  The  homely  material  of 
the  first  novel  was  but  part  of  its  strength.  Readers 
who  had  been  offered  the  flash-romantic  fiction  of 
Disraeli  and  Bulwer,  turned  with  refreshment  to 
the  placid  annals  of  a  village  where,  none  the  less, 
the  human  heart  in  its  follies  and  frailties  and  no- 


2-28     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

bilitics,  is  laid  bare.  The  skill  with  which  the  lei- 
surely moving  story  rises  to  its  vivid  moments  of 
climactic  interest — the  duel  in  the  wood,  Hetty's 
flight,  the  dcatli  of  Adam's  father — is  marked  and 
points  plainly  to  the  advance,  through  study  and 
practice,  of  the  novelist  since  the  "  Clerical  Scenes  " ; 
constructive  excellencies  do  not  come  by  instinct. 
"  Adam  Bede "  is  preeminently  a  book  of  belief, 
written  not  so  much  in  ink  as  in  red  blood,  and  in 
that  psychic  fluid  that  means  the  author's  spiritual 
nature.  She  herself  declared,  "  I  love  it  very  much," 
and  it  reveals  the  fact  on  every  page.  Aside  from 
its  indubitable  worth  as  a  picture  of  English  middle- 
class  country  life  in  an  earlier  nineteenth  century 
than  we  know — the  easy-going  days  before  electricity 
— it  has  its  highest  claim  to  our  regard  as  a  reading 
in  life,  not  conveyed  by  word  of  mouth  didactically, 
but  carried  in  scene  and  character.  The  author's 
tenderness  over  Hetty,  without  even  sentimentalizing 
her  as,  for  example,  Dumas  sentimentalizes  his  Ca- 
mille,  suggests  the  mood  of  the  whole  narrative:  a 
large-minded,  large-hearted  comprehension  of  hu- 
mankind, an  insistence  on  spiritual  tests,  j^et  with  the 
will  to  tell  the  truth  and  present  impartially  the 
darkest  shadows.  It  is  because  George  Eliot's  peo- 
ple are  compounded  with  beautiful  naturalness  of 
good  and  bad — not  hopelessly  bad  with  Hetty,  nor 
hopelessly  good  with  Adam — that  we  understand 
them  and  love  them.      Here  is   an  element  of  her 


GEORGE  ELIOT  229 

effectiveness.  Even  her  Dinah  walks  with  her  feet 
firmly  planted  upon  the  earth,  though  her  mystic 
vision  may  be  skyward. 

With  "  Adam  Bede  "  she  came  into  her  own.  The 
"  Clerical  Scenes  "  had  won  critical  plaudits :  Dick- 
ens, in  1857  long  settled  in  his  seat  of  public  idol- 
atry, wrote  the  unknown  author  a  letter  of  apprecia- 
tion so  warm-hearted,  so  generous,  that  it  is  hard 
to  resist  the  pleasure  of  quoting  it:  it  is  interesting 
to  remark  that  in  despite  the  masculine  pen-name, 
he  attributed  the  Avork  to  a  woman.  But  the  public 
had  not  responded.  With  "  Adam  Bede  "  this  was 
changed;  the  book  gained  speedy  popularity,  the 
author  even  meeting  with  that  mixed  compliment,  a 
bogus  claimant  to  its  authorship.  And  so,  greatly 
encouraged,  and  stimulated  to  do  her  best,  she  pro- 
duced "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,"  a  novel,  which,  if 
not  her  finest,  will  always  be  placed  high  on  her  list 
of  representative  fiction. 

This  time  the  story  as  such  was  stronger,  there 
was  more  substance  and  variety  because  of  the 
greater  number  of  characters  and  their  freer  inter- 
play upon  each  other.  Most  important  of  all,  when 
we  look  beyond  the  immediate  reception  by  the  public 
to  its  more  permanent  position,  the  work  is  decidedly 
more  thoroughgoing  in  its  psychology:  it  goes  to 
the  very  core  of  personality,  where  the  earlier  book 
was  in  some  instances  satisfied  with  sketch-work.  In 
"  Adam  Bede  "  the  freshness  comes  from  the  treat- 


230     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

mcnt  ratlicr  than  tlic  theme.  Tlio  framework,  a 
seduction  story,  is  old  enough — old  as  human  nature 
and  pre-literary  story-telling.  But  in  "  The  Mill 
on  the  Floss  "  we  have  the  history  of  two  inter- 
twined lives,  contrasted  types  from  within  the  con- 
fines of  family  life,  bound  by  kin-love  yet  separated 
by  temperament.  It  is  the  deepest,  truest  of  trag- 
edy and  we  see  that  just  this  particular  study  of 
humanity  had  not  been  accomplished  so  exhaustively 
before  in  all  the  annals  of  fiction.  As  it  happened, 
everything  conspired  to  make  the  author  at  her  best 
when  she  was  writing  this  novel:  as  her  letters  show, 
her  health  was,  for  her,  good:  we  have  noted  the 
stimulus  derived  from  the  reception  of  "Adam  Bede  " 
— which  was  as  wine  to  her  soul.  Then — a  fact 
which  should  never  be  forgotten — the  tale  is  carried 
through  logically  and  expresses,  with  neither  palter- 
ing nor  evasion,  George  Eliot's  sense  of  life's  tragedy. 
In  the  other  book,  on  the  contrary,  a  touch  of  the 
fictitious  was  introduced  bj^  Lewes ;  Dinah  and  Adam 
were  united  to  make  at  the  end  a  mitigation  of  the 
painfulness  of  Hetty's  downfall.  Lewes  may  have 
been  right  in  looking  to  the  contemporary  audience, 
but  never  again  did  Eliot  yield  to  that  form  of  the 
literary  lie,  the  pleasant  ending.  She  certainly  did 
not  in  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  " :  an  element  of  its 
strength  is  its  truth.  The  book,  broadly  considered, 
moves  slow,  with  dramatic  accelerando  at  cumu- 
lative moments ;   it   is  the   kind   of   narrative   where 


GEORGE  ELIOT  231 

this  method  is  allowable  without  artistic  sin.  Another 
great  excellence  is  the  superb  insight  into  the  nature 
of  childhood,  boy  and  girl ;  if  Maggie  is  drawn  with 
the  more  penetrating  sympathy,  Tom  is  finely  ob- 
served: if  the  author  never  rebukes  his  limitations, 
she  states  them  and,  as  it  were,  lifts  hands  to  heaven 
to  cry  like  a  Greek  chorus :  "  See  these  mortals  love 
yet  clash!  Behold,  how  havoc  comes!  Eheu!  this 
mortal  case !  " 

With  humanity  still  pulling  at  her  heart-strings, 
and  conceiving  fiction  which  offered  more  value  of 
plot  than  before,  George  Eliot  wrote  the  charming 
romance  "  Silas  Marner,"  novelette  in  form,  modern 
romance  in  its  just  mingling  of  truth  and  idealiza- 
tion: a  work  published  the  next  year.  She  Inter- 
rupted "  Romola  "  to  do  it,  which  is  suggestive  as 
indicating  absorption  by  the  theme.  This  story 
offers  a  delightful  blend  of  homely  realism  with  poetic 
symbolism.  The  miser  is  wooed  from  his  sordid 
love  of  gold  by  the  golden  glint  of  a  little  girl's 
hair:  as  love  creeps  into  his  starved  heart,  heartless 
greed  goes  out  forever:  before  a  soulless  machine, 
he  becomes  a  man.  It  is  the  world-old,  still  potent 
thought  that  the  good  can  drive  out  the  bad:  a 
spiritual  allegory  in  a  series  of  vivid  pictures  carry- 
ing the  wholesomest  and  highest  of  lessons.  The 
artistic  and  didactic  are  here  in  happy  union.  And 
as  nowhere  else  in  her  work  (unless  exception  be 
made  in  the  case  of  "  Romola  ")   she  sees  a  truth 


v!3  2     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

in  terms  of  drama.  To  read  the  story  is  to  feel 
its  stage  value :  it  is  no  surprise  to  know  tliat  several 
dramatizations  of  tlic  book  liave  been  made.  Aside 
from  its  central  motive,  tlie  studies  of  homely  village 
life,  as  well  as  of  polite  society,  are  in  Eliot's  best 
manner:  the  humor  of  Dolly  Winthrop  is  of  as  ex- 
cellent vintage  as  the  humor  of  Mrs.  Poyser  in 
"  x\dam  Bcdc,"  yet  with  the  necessary  differentiation. 
The  typical  deep  sympathy  for  common  humanity — 
just  average  folks — permeates  the  handling.  More- 
over, while  the  romance  has  a  happy  issue,  as  a 
romance  should  according  to  Stevenson,  if  it  pos- 
sibly can,  it  does  not  differ  in  its  view  of  life  from 
so  fatalistic  a  book  as  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  " ;  for 
circumstances  change  Silas  ;  if  the  child  Eppie  had 
not  come  he  might  have  remained  a  miser.  It  was 
not  his  will  alone  that  revolutionized  his  life ;  what 
some  would  call  luck  was  at  work  there.  In  "  Silas 
Marner  "  the  teaching  is  of  a  piece  with  that  of  all 
her  representative  work. 

But  when  we  reach  "  Romola  "  there  is  a  change, 
debatable  ground  is  entered  upon  at  once.  Hitherto, 
the  story-teller  has  mastered  the  preacher,  although 
an  ever  more  earnest  soul  has  been  expressing  itself 
about  Life.  Now  we  enter  the  region  of  more  self- 
conscious  literary  art,  of  planned  work  and  study, 
and  confront  the  possibility  of  flagging  invention. 
Also,  we  leave  the  solid  ground  of  contemporary 
themes  and  find  the  realist  with  her  hang  for  truth, 


GEORGE  ELIOT  233 

essaying  an  historical  setting,  an  entirely  new  and 
foreign  motive.  Eliot  had  already  proved  her  right 
to  depict  certain  aspects  of  her  own  English  life. 
To  strive  to  exercise  the  same  powers  on  a  theme 
like  "  Romola  "  was  a  venturesome  step.  We  have 
seen  how  Dickens  and  Thackeray  essayed  romance 
at  least  once  with  ringing  success ;  now  the  third 
major  mid-century  novelist  was  to  try  the  same 
thing. 

It  may  be  conceded  at  the  start  that  in  one  im- 
portant respect  this  Florentine  story  of  Savonarola 
and  his  day  is  entirely  typical:  it  puts  clearly  before 
us  in  a  medieval  romantic  mis-en  scene,  the  problem 
of  a  soul :  the  slow,  subtle,  awful  degeneration  of 
the  man  Tito,  with  its  foil  in  the  noble  figure  of  the 
girl  Romola.  The  central  personality  psycholog- 
ically is  that  of  the  wily  Greek-Italian,  and  Eliot 
never  probed  deeper  into  the  labyrinths  of  the  per- 
turbed human  spirit  than  in  this  remarkable  analysis. 
The  reader,  too,  remembers  gratefully,  with  a  catch 
of  the  breath,  the  great  scenes,  two  of  which  are 
the  execution  of  Savonarola,  and  the  final  confronta- 
tion of  Tito  by  his  adoptive  father,  with  its  Greek- 
like sense  of  tragic  doom.  The  same  reader  stands 
aghast  before  the  labor  which  must  lie  behind  such 
a  work  and  often  comes  to  him  a  sudden,  vital  sense 
of  fifteenth  century  Florence,  then,  as  never  since, 
the  Lily  of  the  Arno:  so  cunningly  and  with  such 
felicity  arc  innumerable  details  individualized,  massed 


^231.     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

and  blended.  And  yet,  somehow  it  all  seems  a  splen- 
did experiment,  a  worthy  performance  rather  than 
a  spontaneous  and  successful  creative  endeavor:  this, 
in  comparison  with  the  fiction  that  came  before.  The 
author  seems  a  little  over-burdened  by  the  trcmen- 
dousness  of  her  material.  Whether  it  is  because  the 
Savonarola  episode  is  not  thoroughly  synthetizcd 
with  the  Tito-Romola  part :  or  that  the  central  theme 
is  of  itself  fundamentally  unpleasant — or  again,  that 
from  the  nature  of  the  romance,  head-work  had 
largely  to  supplant  that  genial  draught  upon  the 
springs  of  childhood  which  gave  us  "  Adam  Bede  " 
and  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  " ; — or  once  more, 
whether  the  crowded  canvas  injures  the  unity  of  the 
design,  be  these  as  they  may,  "  Romola "  strikes 
one  as  great  in  spots  and  as  conveying  a  noble  though 
somber  truth,  but  does  not  carry  us  off  our  feet. 
That  is  the  blunt  truth  about  it,  major  work  as 
it  is,  with  only  half  a  dozen  of  its  kind  to  equal 
it  in  all  English  literature.  It  falls  distinctly  be- 
hind both  "  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  "  and  "  Esmond." 
It  is  a  book  to  admire,  to  praise  in  many  particulars, 
to  be  impressed  by:  but  not  quite  to  treasure  as  one 
treasures  the  story  of  the  Tullivers.  It  was  written 
by  George  Eliot,  famous  novelist,  who  with  that 
anxious,  morbid  conscience  of  hers,  had  to  live  up  to 
her  reputation,  and  who  received  $50,000  for  the 
work,  even  to-day  a  large  sum  for  a  piece  of  fiction. 
It  was  not  written  by  a  woman  irresistibly  impelled 


GEORGE  ELIOT  235 

to  self-expression,  seized  with  the  passionate  desire 
to  paint  Life.  It  is,  in  a  sense,  her  first  professional 
feat  and  performance. 

Meanwhile,  she  was  getting  on  in  life:  we  saw  that 
she  was  seven  and  thirty  when  she  wrote  the  "  Cler- 
ical Scenes  " :  it  was  almost  a  decade  later  when 
"  Felix  Holt,  Radical "  appeared,  and  she  was  near- 
ing  fifty.  I  believe  it  to  be  helpful  to  draw  a  line 
between  all  her  fiction  before  and  after  "  Felix  Holt," 
placing  that  book  somewhat  uncertainly  on  the  di- 
viding line.  The  four  earlier  novels  stand  for  a 
period  when  there  is  a  strong,  or  at  least  sufficient 
story  interest,  the  proper  amount  of  objectification: 
to  the  second  division  belong  "  Middlemarch "  and 
"  Daniel  Dcronda,"  where  we  feel  that  problem  comes 
first  and  story  second.  In  the  intermediate  novel, 
"  Felix  Holt,"  its  excellent  story  places  it  with  the 
first  books,  but  its  increased  didactic  tendency  with 
the  latest  stories.  Why  has  "  Felix  Holt "  been 
treated  by  the  critics,  as  a  rule,  as  of  comparatively 
minor  value  .f^  It  is  very  interesting,  contains  true 
characterization,  much  of  picturesque  and  dramatic 
worth;  it  abounds  in  enjoyable  first-hand  observation 
of  a  period  by-gone  yet  near  enough  to  have  been 
cognizant  to  the  writer.  Her  favorite  types,  too, 
are  in  it.  Holt,  a  study  of  the  advanced  workman 
of  his  day,  is  another  Bede,  mutatis  mutandis,  and 
quite  as  truly  realized.  Both  Mr.  Lyon  and  his 
daughter  are  capitally  drawn  and  the  motive  of  the 


236    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

novel — to  tcacli  Felix  that  he  can  be  quite  as  true 
to  his  cause  if  he  be  less  rough  and  eccentric  in  dress 
and  deportment,  is  a  good  one  handled  with  success. 
To  which  may  be  added  that  the  encircling  theme 
of  Mrs.  Transome's  mystery,  grips  the  attention 
from  tiie  start  and  there  is  pleasure  when  it  is  seen 
to  involve  Esther,  leading  her  to  make  a  choice  wliich 
reveals  that  she  has  awakened  to  a  truer  valuation 
of  life — and  of  Felix.  With  all  these  things  in  its 
favor,  wliy  has  appreciation  been  so  scant.'' 

Is  it  not  that  continually  in  the  narrative  you 
lose  its  broader  human  interest  because  of  the  nar- 
rower political  and  social  questions  that  are  raised.'* 
They  are  vital  questions,  but  still,  more  specific, 
technical,  of  the  time.  Nor  is  their  weaving  into 
the  more  permanent  theme  altogether  skilful:  you 
feel  like  exclaiming  to  the  novelist :  "  O,  let  Kingsley 
handle  chartism,  but  do  you  stick  to  your  last — 
love  and  its  criss-cross,  family  sin  and  its  outcome, 
character  changed  as  life  comes  to  be  more  vitally 
realized."  George  Eliot  in  this  fine  story  falls  into 
this  mistake,  as  does  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  in  her 
well-remembered  "  Robert  Elsmere,"  and  as  she  has 
again  in  the  novel  which  happens  to  be  her  latest 
as  these  words  are  written,  "  Marriage  a  la  Mode." 
The  thesis  has  a  way  of  sticking  out  obtrusively  in 
such  efforts. 

Many  readers  may  not  feel  this  in  "  Felix  Holt," 
which,    whatever    its    shortcomings,    remains    an    ex- 


GEORGE  ELIOT  237 

tremely  able  and  interesting  novel,  often  underesti- 
mated. Still,  I  imagine  a  genuine  distinction  has 
been  made  with  regard  to  it. 

The  difference  is  more  definitely  felt  in  "  Middle- 
march,"  not  infrequently  called  Eliot's  masterpiece. 
It  appeared  five  years  later  and  the  author  was  over 
fifty  when  the  book  was  published  serially  during 
1871  and  1872.  Nearly  four  years  were  spent  in 
the  work  of  composition:  for  it  the  sum  of  $60,000 
was  paid. 

"  Middlemarch,"  which  resembles  Thackeray's 
"  Vanity  Fair  "  in  telling  two  stories  not  closely  re- 
lated, seems  less  a  Novel  than  a  chronicle-history  of 
two  families.  It  is  important  to  remember  that  its 
two  parts  were  conceived  as  independent;  their  weld- 
ing, to  call  it  such,  was  an  afterthought.  The 
tempo  again,  suiting  the  style  of  fiction,  is  leisurely: 
character  study,  character  contrast,  is  the  principal 
aim.  More  definitely,  the  marriage  problem,  il- 
lustrated by  Dorothea's  experience  with  Casaubon, 
and  that  of  Lydgate  with  Rosamond,  is  what  the 
writer  places  before  us.  Marriage  is  chosen  simply 
because  it  is  the  modern  spiritual  battleground,  a 
condition  for  the  trying-out  of  souls.  The  greatness 
of  the  work  lies  in  its  breadth  (subjective  more 
than  objective),  its  panoramic  view  of  English  coun- 
try life  of  the  refined  type,  its  rich  garner  of  wisdom 
concerning  human  motive  and  action.  We  have  seen 
in  earlier  studies  that  its  type,  the  chronicle  of  events 


\>:iS    MASTERS  OV  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

as  they  nflfcct  character,  is  a  legitimate  one:  a  suc- 
cessful genus  in  English-speaking  fiction  in  hands 
like  those  of  Thackeray,  Eliot  and  Howells.  It 
is  one  accepted  kind,  a  distinct,  often  able,  sympa- 
thetic kind  of  fiction  of  our  race:  its  worth  as  a 
social  document  (to  use  the  convenient  term  once 
more)  is  likely  to  be  high.  It  lacks  the  close-knit 
plot,  the  feeling  for  stage  effect,  the  swift  progres- 
sion and  the  sense  of  completed  action  which  another 
and  more  favored  sort  of  Novel  exhibits.  Yet  it  may 
have  as  much  chance  of  permanence  in  the  hands 
of  a  master.  The  proper  question,  then,  seems  to 
be  whether  it  most  fitly  expresses  the  genius  of  an 
author. 

Perhaps  there  will  never  be  general  agreement  as 
to  this  in  the  case  of  "  Middlemarch."  The  book 
is  drawn  from  wells  of  experience  not  so  deep  in 
Eliot's  nature  as  those  which  w^ent  to  the  making 
of  "  Adam  Bede  "  and  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,"  It 
is  life  wath  which  the  author  became  familiar  in 
London  and  about  the  world  during  her  later  literary 
days.  She  knows  it  well,  and  paints  it  with  her  usual 
noble  insistence  upon  truth.  But  she  knows  it  with 
her  brain ;  whereas,  she  knows  "  The  Mill  on  the 
Floss  "  with  her  blood.  There  is  surely  that  difference. 
Hence,  the  latter  w'ork  has,  it  would  seem,  a  better 
chance  for  long  life ;  for,  without  losing  the  author's 
characteristic  interpretation,  it  has  more  story-value, 
is  richer  in  humor  (that  alleviating  ingredient  of  all 


GEORGE  ELIOT  239 

fiction)  and  is  a  better  work  of  art.  It  shows  George 
Eliot  absorbed  in  story-telling :  "  Middlemarcli "  is 
George  Eliot  using  a  slight  framework  of  story  for 
the  sake  of  talking  about  life  and  illustrating  by 
character.  Those  who  call  it  her  masterpiece  are 
not  judging  it  primarily  as  art- work:  any  more 
than  those  who  call  Whitman  the  greatest  American 
poet  are  judging  him  as  artist.  While  it  seems 
necessary  to  make  this  distinction,  it  is  quite  as 
necessary  to  bear  down  on  the  attraction  of  the 
character-drawing.  That  is  a  truly  wonderful  por- 
trait of  the  unconsciously  selfish  scholar  in  Casaubon. 
Dorothea's  noble  naturalness,  Will  Ladislaw's  fiery 
truth,  the  verity  of  Rosamond's  bovine  mediocrity, 
the  fine  reality  of  Lydgate's  situation,  so  portentous 
in  its  demand  upon  the  moral  nature — all  this,  and 
more  than  this,  is  admirable  and  authoritative.  The 
predominant  thought  in  closing  such  a  study  is  that 
of  the  tremendous  complexity  of  human  fate,  in- 
fluenced as  it  is  by  heredity,  environment  and  the 
personal  equation,  and  not  without  melioristic  hope, 
if  we  but  live  up  to  our  best.  The  tone  is  grave, 
but  not  hopeless.  The  quiet,  hesitant  movement 
helps  the  sense  of  this  slow  sureness  in  the  working 
of  the  social  law: 

"  Though  the  mills  of  God  grind  slowly. 
Yet  they  grind  exceeding  small." 

In   her   final   novel,   "  Daniel   Deronda,"   between 
which    and    "  Middlemarcli "    there    were    six    years. 


210    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

so  that  it  was  published  when  tlie  author  was  nearly 
sixty  years  old,  we  have  another  large  canvas  upon 
which,  in  great  detail  and  with  admirable  variety, 
is  displayed  a  composition  that  does  not  aim  at 
complete  unity — or  at  any  rate,  does  not  accomplish 
it,  for  the  motive  is  double:  to  present  the  Jew  so 
that  Judenhetzc  may  be  diminished:  and  to  exhibit 
the  spiritual  evolution  through  a  succession  of  emo- 
tional experiences  of  the  girl  Gwendolen.  This 
phase  of  the  story  offers  an  instructive  parallel  with 
Meredith's  "  Diana  of  the  Crossways."  If  the  Jew 
theme  had  been  made  secondary  artistically  to  the 
Gwendolen  study,  the  novel  would  have  secured  a 
greater  degree  of  constructive  success ;  but  there's 
the  rub.  Now  it  seems  the  main  issue;  again,  Gwen- 
dolen holds  the  center  of  the  stage.  The  result 
is  a  suspicion  of  patchwork;  nor  is  this  changed  by 
the  fact  that  both  parts  are  brilliantly  done — to 
which  consideration  may  be  added  the  well-known 
antipathy  of  many  Gentile  readers  to  any  treatment 
of  the  Jew  in  fiction,  if  an  explanation  be  sought 
of  the  relative  slighting  of  a  very  noble  book. 

For  it  has  virtues,  many  and  large.  Its  spirit 
is  broad,  tolerant,  wide  and  loving.  In  no  previous 
Eliot  fiction  are  there  finer  single  effects:  no  one 
is  likely  to  forget  the  scene  in  which  Gwendolen 
and  Harcourt  come  to  a  rupture ;  or  the  scene  of  De- 
ronda's  dismissal.  And  in  the  way  of  character 
portrayal,  nothing  is  keener  and  truer  than  the  hero- 


GEORGE  ELIOT  241 

me  of  this  book,  whose  unawakened,  seemingly  light, 
nature  is  chastened  and  deepened  as  she  slowly  learns 
the  meaning  of  life.  The  lesson  is  sound  and  sal- 
utary: it  is  set  forth  so  vividly  as  to  be  immensely 
impressive.  Mordecai,  against  the  background  nec- 
essary to  show  him,  is  sketched  with  splendid  power. 
And  the  percentage  of  quotable  sayings,  sword- 
thrusts,  many  of  them,  into  the  vitals  of  life,  is  as 
high  perhaps  as  in  any  other  of  the  Novels,  unless 
it  be  "  Middlemarch."  Nevertheless  those  who  point 
to  "  Deronda  "  as  illustrating  the  novelist's  decad- 
ence— although  they  use  too  harsh  a  word — have 
some  right  on  their  side.  For,  viewed  as  story, 
it  is  not  so  successful  as  the  books  of  the  first  half 
of  George  Eliot's  career.  It  all  depends  whether 
a  vital  problem  Novel  is  given  preference  over  a  Novel 
which  does  not  obtrude  message,  if  it  have  any  at 
all.  And  if  fiction  be  a  fine  art,  it  must  be  confessed 
that  this  latter  sort  is  superior.  But  we  have  per- 
fect liberty  to  admire  the  elevation,  earnestness  and 
skill  en  detail  that  denote  such  a  work.  Nay,  we 
may  go  further  and  say  that  the  woman  who  wrote 
it  is  greater  than  she  who  wrote  "  The  Mill  on  the 
Floss." 

With  a  backward  glance  now  at  the  list,  it  may 
be  said  in  summary  that  the  earlier  fiction  constitutes 
George  Eliot's  most  authoritative  contribution  to 
English  novel-making,  since  the  thinking  about  life 
so   characteristic   of  her  is  kept  within  the  bounds 


242     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

of  good  story-telling.  And  the  compensation  for 
this  artistic  loss  in  her  later  fiction  is  found  in  its 
wider  intellectual  outlook,  its  deeper  sympathy,  the 
more  profound  humanity  of  the  message. 

But  what  of  her  philosophy?  She  was  not  a  pessi- 
mist, since  the  pessimist  is  one  who  despairs  of 
human  virtue  and  regards  the  world  as  paralyzing 
the  will  nobly  to  achieve.  She  was,  rather,  a  melio- 
rist  who  hoped  for  better  things,  though  tardy  to 
come ;  who  believed,  in  her  own  pungent  phrase,  "  in 
the  slow  contagion  of  good."  Of  human  happiness 
she  did  in  one  of  her  latest  moods  despair:  going 
so  far  in  a  dark  moment  as  to  declare  that  the  only 
ideal  left  her  was  duty.  In  a  way,  she  grew  sadder 
as  she  grew  older.  By  intellect  she  was  a  positivist 
who  has  given  up  any  definite  hope  of  personal  im- 
mortality— save  that  which  by  a  metaphor  is  applied 
to  one's  influence  upon  the  life  of  the  world  here  upon 
earth.  And  in  her  own  career,  by  her  unconventional 
union  with  Lewes,  she  made  a  questionable  choice  of 
action,  though  from  the  highest  motives ;  a  choice 
which  I  believe  rasped  her  sensitive  soul  because  of 
the  way  it  was  regarded  by  many  whom  she  respected 
and  whose  good  opinion  she  coveted.  But  she  re- 
mained splendidly  wholesome  and  inspiring  in  her 
fiction,  because  she  clung  to  her  faith  in  spiritual 
self-development,  tested  all  life  by  the  test  of  duty, 
felt  the  pathos  and  the  preciousness  of  inconspicuous 
lives,  and  devoted  herself  through  a  most  exceptional 


GEORGE  ELIOT  243 

career  to  loving  sei'vice  for  others.  She  was  there- 
fore not  only  a  novelist  of  genius,  but  a  profoundly 
good  woman.  She  had  an  ample  practical  credo 
for  living  and  will  always  be,  for  those  who  read 
with  their  mind  and  soul  as  well  as  their  eyes,  any- 
thing but  a  depressing  writer.  For  them,  on  the 
contrary,  she  will  be  a  tonic  force,  a  seer  using  fiction 
as  a  means  to  an  end — and  that  end  the  betterment 
of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  XI 

TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS 

Five  or  six  writers  of  fiction,  none  of  whom  has 
attained  a  position  like  that  of  the  tlirce  great  Vic- 
torians already  considered,  yet  all  of  whom  loomed 
large  in  their  day,  have  met  with  unequal  treat- 
ment at  the  hands  of  time:  Bulwer  Lytton,  Disraeli, 
Reads,  Trollope,  Kingsley.  And  the  Brontes  might 
well  be  added  to  the  list.  The  men  are  mentioned 
in  the  order  of  their  birth ;  yet  it  seems  more  natural 
to  place  Trollope  last,  not  at  all  because  he  lived 
to  1882,  while  Kingsley  died  seven  years  earlier. 
Reade  lived  two  years  after  Trollope,  but  seems 
chronologically  far  before  him  as  a  novelist.  In 
the  same  way,  Disraeli  and  Bulwer  Lytton,  as  we 
now  look  back  upon  them,  appear  to  be  figures  of 
another  age ;  though  the  former  lived  to  within  a 
few  years  of  Trollope,  and  the  latter  died  but  two 
years  before  Kingsley.  Of  course,  the  reason 
that  Disraeli  impresses  us  as  antiquated  where  Trol- 
lope looks  thoroughly  modern,  is  because  the  latter 
is  nearest  our  own  day  in  method,  temper  and  aim. 
And  this  is  the  main  reason  why  he  has  best  survived 
the  shocks  of  time  and  is  seen  to  be  the  most  sig- 

244 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  245 

nificant  figure  of  an  able  and  interesting  group.  Be- 
fore he  is  examined,  something  may  be  said  of  the 
others. 

In  a  measure,  the  great  reputation  enjoyed  by  the 
remaining  writers  was  secured  in  divisions  of  liter- 
ature other  than  fiction ;  or  derived  from  activities 
not  literary  at  all.  Thus  Beaconsfield  was  Premier, 
Bulwer  was  noted  as  poet  and  dramatist,  and  eminent 
in  diplomacy ;  Kingsley  a  leader  in  Church  and  State. 
They  were  men  with  many  irons  in  the  fire :  naturally, 
it  took  some  years  to  separate  their  literary  im- 
portance pure  and  simple  from  the  other  accomplish- 
ments that  swelled  their  fame.  Reade  stood  some- 
what more  definitely  for  literature;  and  Trollope, 
although  his  living  was  gained  for  years  as  a  public 
servant,  set  his  all  of  reputation  on  the  single  throw 
of  letters.  He  is  Anthony  Trollope,  Novelist,  or 
he  is  nothing. 


Thinking  of  Disraeli  as  a  maker  of  stories,  one 
reads  of  his  immense  vogue  about  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  and  reflects  sagely  upon  the  change  of 
literary  fashions.  The  magic  is  gone  for  the  reader 
now.  Such  claim  as  he  can  still  make  is  most  favor- 
ably estimated  by  "  Coningsby,"  "  Sybil "  and 
"  Tancred,"  all  published  within  four  years,  and 
constituting  a  trilogy  of  books  in  which  the  follies 


246    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

of  polite  society  and  the  intimacies  of  politics  are 
portrayed  with  fertility  and  facility.  The  earlier 
"  Henrietta  Temple  "  and  "  Venetia,"  however  fervid 
in  feeling  and  valuable  for  the  delineation  of  con- 
temporary character,  are  not  so  characteristic.  Nor 
are  the  novels  of  his  last  years,  "  Lothair "  and 
"  Endymion,"  in  any  way  better  than  those  of  his 
3'ounger  days.  That  the  political  trilogy  have  still 
a  certain  value  as  studies  of  the  time  is  beyond 
argument.  Also,  they  have  wit,  invention  and  a 
richly  pictorial  sense  for  setting,  together  with  flam- 
boyant attraction  of  style  and  a  solid  substratum  of 
thought.  One  recognizes  often  that  an  athletic  mind 
is  at  play  in  them.  But  they  do  not  now  take  hold, 
whatever  they  once  did;  an  air  of  the  false-literary 
is  over  them,  it  is  not  easy  to  read  them  as  true 
transcripts  from  life.  To  get  a  full  sense  of  this, 
turn  to  literally  contemporaneous  books  like  Dick- 
ens' "  David  Copperfield  "  and  "  Hard  Times  " ; 
compared  with  such,  Disraeli  and  all  his  world  seem 
clever  pastiche.  Personal  taste  may  modify  this 
statement:  it  can  hardly  reverse  it.  It  would  be 
futile  to  explain  the  difference  by  saying  that  Dis- 
raeli was  some  eight  years  before  Dickens  or  that 
he  dealt  with  another  and  higher  class  of  society. 
The  difference  goes  deeper:  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
one  writer  was  writing  in  the  spirit  of  the  age  with 
his  face  to  the  future  and  so  giving  a  creative 
representation   of  its  life;   whereas  the   other   was 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  247 

painting  its  manners  and  only  half  in  earnest :  play- 
ing with  literature,  in  sooth.  A  man  like  Dickens 
is  married  to  his  art ;  Disraeli  indulges  in  a  tempo- 
rary liaison  with  letters.  There  is,  too,  in  the 
Lothair-Endymion  kind  of  literature  a  fatal  resem- 
blance to  the  older  sentimental  and  grandiose  fiction 
of  the  eighteenth  century:  an  effect  of  plush  and 
padding,  an  atmosphere  of  patchouli  and  sachet 
powder.  It  has  the  limitation  that  fashion  ever 
sets ;  it  is  boudoir  novel-writing :  cabinet  literature 
in  both  the  social  and  political  sense.  As  Agnes 
Repplier  has  it :  "  Lothair  is  beloved  by  the  female 
aristocracy  of  Great  Britain ;  and  mysterious  ladies, 
whose  lofty  souls  stoop  to  no  conventionalities,  die 
happy  with  his  kisses  on  their  lips."  It  would  be 
going  too  far  perhaps  to  say  that  this  type  never 
existed  in  life,  for  Richardson  seems  to  have 
had  a  model  in  mind  in  drawing  Grandison ;  but  it 
hardly  survives  in  letters,  unless  we  include  "  St. 
Elmo  "  and  "  Under  Two  Flags  "  in  that  denomina- 
tion. 

To  sum  it  all  up :  For  most  of  us  Disraeli  has 
become  hard  reading.  This  is  not  to  say  that  he 
cannot  still  be  read  with  profit  as  one  who  gives  us 
insight  concerning  his  day ;  but  his  gorgeous  pictures 
and  personages  have  faded  woefully,  where  Trol- 
lope's  are  as  bright  as  ever;  and  the  latter  is  right 
when  he  said  that  Lord  Beaconsfield's  creatures 
"  have  a  flavor  of  paint  and  unreality." 


'2iS    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

II 

Biilwcr  Lytton  has  likewise  lost  ground  greatly: 
but  read  to-day  he  has  much  more  to  offer.  In 
liim,  too,  may  be  seen  an  imperfectly  blent  mixture 
of  by-gone  sentimentality  and  modem  truth:  yet 
whether  in  the  romance  of  historic  setting,  "  The 
Last  Days  of  Pompeii,"  or  in  the  satiric  study  of 
realism,  like  "  My  Novel,"  Bulwer  is  much  nearer 
to  us,  and  holds  out  vital  literature  for  our  apprecia- 
tion. It  is  easy  to  name  faults  both  in  romance 
and  realism  of  his  making:  but  the  important  thing 
to  acknowledge  is  that  he  still  appeals,  can  be  read 
with  a  certain  pleasure.  His  most  mature  work, 
moreover,  bears  testimony  to  the  coming  creed  of 
fiction,  as  Disraeli's  never  does.  There  are  moments 
with  Bulwer  when  he  almost  seems  a  fellow  of  Mere- 
dith's. I  recall  with  amusement  the  classroom  re- 
mark of  a  college  professor  to  the  effect  that  "  My 
Novel  "  was  the  greatest  fiction  in  English  literature. 
While  the  freshmen  to  whom  this  was  addressed  did 
not  appreciate  the  generous  erraticism  of  the  judg- 
ment, even  now  one  of  them  sees  that,  coming  as  it 
did  from  a  clergyman  of  genial  culture,  a  true  lover 
of  literature  and  one  to  inspire  that  love  in  others — 
even  in  freshmen ! — it  could  hardly  have  been  spoken 
concerning  a  mere  man-milliner  of  letters.  Bulwer 
produced  too  much  and  in  too  many  kinds  to  do 
his  best  in  all — or  in  any;  one.    But  most  of  us  sooner 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  249 

or  later  have  been  in  thrall  to  "  Kenelm  Chillingly  " 
or  thrilled  to  that  masterly  horror  story,  "  The 
House  and  the  Brain."  There  is  pinchbeck  with 
the  gold,  but  the  shining  true  metal  is  there. 

Ill 

To  pass  to  Kingsley,  is  like  turning  from  the  world 
to  the  kingdom  of  God :  all  is  religious  fervor,  human- 
itarian purpose.  Here  again  the  activity  is  multiple 
but  the  dominant  spirit  is  that  of  militant  Christian- 
ity. Outside  of  the  Novel,  Kingsley  has  left  in 
"  Water  Babies "  a  book  deserving  the  name  of 
modern  classic,  unless  the  phrase  be  a  contradiction 
in  terms.  "  Alton  Locke,"  read  to-day,  is  felt  to 
be  too  much  the  tract  to  bear  favorable  comparison 
with  Eliot's  "  Felix  Holt  " ;  but  it  has  literary  power 
and  noble  sincerity.  Kingsley  is  one  of  the  first  to 
feel  the  ground-swell  of  social  democracy  which  was 
to  sweep  later  fiction  on  its  mighty  tide.  "West- 
ward Ho !  "  is  a  sterling  historical  romance,  one  of 
the  more  successful  books  in  a  select  list  which  em- 
braces "  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,"  "  Loma 
Doone,"  and  "  John  Inglesant."  "  Hypatia,"  ex- 
amined dispassionately,  may  be  described  as  an  his- 
torical romance  with  elements  of  greatness  rather 
than  a  great  historical  romance.  But  it  shed  its 
glamour  over  our  youth  and  there  is  affectionate 
dread  in  the  thought  of  a  more  critical  re-reading. 


'2M)     MAS'IKHS  OK  TIIK    KNClLLSll   NOVEL 

111  truth,  Kiiigslcj,  viewed  in  all  his  literary  work, 
stands  out  as  an  athlete  of  the  intellect  and  the  emo- 
tions, doing  imu'h  and  doing  it  remarkably  well — a 
power  for  righteousness  in  his  day  and  generation, 
but  for  this  very  reason  less  a  professional  novelist 
of  assured  standing.  His  gifted,  erratic  brother 
Henry,  in  the  striking  series  of  stories  dealing  pre- 
vailingly with  the  Australian  life  he  so  well  knew, 
makes  a  stronger  impression  of  singleness  of  power 
and  may  last  longer,  one  suspects,  than  the  better- 
known,  more  successful  Charles,  whose  significance 
for  the  later  generation  is,  as  we  have  hinted,  in  his 
sensitiveness  to  the  new  spirit  of  social  revolt, — an 
isolated  voice  where  there  is  now  full  chorus. 

IV 

An  even  more  virile  figure  and  one  to  whom  the 
attribution  of  genius  need  not  be  grudged,  is  the 
strong,  pugnacious,  eminently  picturesque  Charles 
Reade.  It  is  a  temptation  to  say  that  but  for  his  use 
of  a  method  and  a  technique  hopelessly  old-fashioned, 
he  might  claim  close  fellowship  for  gift  and  influence 
with  Dickens.  But  he  lacked  art  as  it  is  now  under- 
stood :  balance,  restraint,  the  impersonal  view  were 
not  his.  He  is  a  glorious  but  imperfect  phenomenon, 
back  there  in  the  middle  century.  He  worked  in  a 
way  deserving  of  the  descriptive  phrase  once  applied 
to  Macaulay — "  a  steam  engine  in  breeches ;  "  he  put 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  251 

enough  belief  and  heart  into  his  fiction  to  float  any 
literary  vessel  upon  the  treacherous  waters  of  fame. 
He  had,  of  the  more  specific  qualities  of  a  novelist, 
racy  idiom,  power  in  creating  character  and  a  re- 
markable gift  for  plot  and  dramatic  scene.  His 
frankly  melodramatic  novels  like  "  A  Terrible  Temp- 
tation "  are  among  the  best  of  their  kind,  and  in 
"  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth "  he  performed  the 
major  literary  feat  of  reconstructing,  with  the  large 
imagination  and  humanity  which  obliterate  any  effect 
of  archeology  and  worked-up  background,  a  period 
long  past.  And  what  reader  of  English  fiction  does 
not  harbor  more  than  kindly  sentiments  for  those 
very  different  yet  equally  lovable  women,  Christie 
Johnstone  and  Peg  Woffington?  To  run  over  his 
contributions  thus  is  to  feel  the  heart  grow  warm 
towards  the  sturdy  story-teller.  Reade  also  played 
a  part,  as  did  Kingsley,  in  the  movement  for  recogni- 
tion of  the  socially  unfit  and  those  unfairly  treated. 
"  Put  Yourself  in  His  Place,"  with  its  early  word 
on  the  readjustment  of  labor  troubles,  is  typical  of 
much  that  he  strove  to  do.  Superb  partisan  that 
he  was,  it  is  probable  that  had  he  cared  less  for 
polemics  and  more  for  his  art,  he  would  have  secured 
a  safer  position  in  the  annals  of  fiction.  He  can 
always  be  taken  up  and  enjoyed  for  his  earnest  con- 
viction or  his  story  for  the  story's  sake,  even  if  on 
more  critical  evaluations  he  comes  out  not  so  well 
as  men  of  lesser  caliber. 


252    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 


The  writer  of  the  group  who  has  consistently 
gained  ground  and  has  come  to  be  generally  recog- 
nized as  a  great  artist,  a  force  in  English  fiction 
both  for  influence  and  pleasure-giving  power,  is 
Anthony  Trollope.  He  is  vital  to-day  and  strength- 
ening his  liold  upon  the  readers  of  fiction.  The 
quiet,  cultivated  folk  in  whose  good  opinion  lies  the 
destiny  of  really  worthy  literature,  are,  as  a  rule, 
friendly  to  Trollope;  not  seldom  they  are  devoted  to 
him.  Such  people  peruse  him  in  an  en  joy  ably  rumi- 
native way  at  their  meals,  or  read  him  in  the  neglige 
of  retirement.  He  is  that  cosy,  enviable  thing,  a 
bedside  author.  He  is  above  all  a  story-teller  for 
the  middle-aged  and  it  is  his  good  fortune  to  be  able 
to  sit  and  wait  for  us  at  that  half-way  house, — since 
we  all  arrive.  Of  course,  to  say  this  is  to  acknowl- 
edge his  limitations.  He  does  not  appeal  strongly 
to  the  young,  though  he  never  forgets  to  tell  a  love 
story;  but  he  is  too  placid,  matter-of-fact,  unro- 
mantic  for  them.  But  if  he  do  not  shake  us  with 
lyric  passion,  he  is  always  interesting  and  he  wears 
uncommonly  well.  That  his  popularity  is  extend- 
ing is  testified  to  by  new  editions  and  publishers' 
hullabaloo  over  his  work. 

Such  a  fate  is  deserved  by  him,  for  Trollope  is 
one  of  the  most  consummate  masters  of  that  common- 
place which  has   become   the   modern   fashion — and 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  253 

fascination.  He  has  a  wonderful  power  in  the  reahsm 
which  means  getting  close  to  the  fact  and  the  average 
without  making  them  uninteresting.  So,  naturally, 
as  realism  has  gained  he  has  gained.  No  one  except 
Jane  Austen  has  surpassed  him  in  this  power  of 
truthful  portrayal,  and  he  has  the  advantage  of  be- 
ing practically  of  our  own  day.  He  insisted  that 
fiction  should  be  objective,  and  refused  to  intrude 
himself  into  the  story,  showing  himself  in  this  respect 
a  better  artist  than  Thackeray,  whom  he  much  ad- 
mired but  frankly  criticized.  He  was  unwilling  to 
pause  and  harangue  his  audience  in  rotund  voice  after 
the  manner  of  Dickens.  First  among  modem  novel- 
ists, Trollope  stands  invisible  behind  his  characters, 
and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  was  to  become  one  of  the 
articles  of  the  modern  creed  of  fiction.  He  affords 
us  that  peculiar  pleasure  which  is  derived  from  seeing 
in  a  book  what  we  instantly  recognize  as  familiar  to 
us  in  life.  Just  why  the  pleasure,  may  be  left  to  the 
psychologists ;  but  it  is  of  indisputable  charm,  and 
Trollope  possesses  it.  We  may  talk  wisely  and  at 
length  of  his  commonplaceness,  lack  of  spice,  philist- 
inism;  he  can  be  counted  on  to  amuse  us.  He  lived 
valiantly  up  to  his  own  injunction:  "Of  all  the 
needs  a  book  has,  the  chief  need  is  that  it  is 
readable."  A  simple  test,  this,  but  a  terrible  one 
that  has  slain  its  thousands.  No  nineteenth  cen- 
tury maker  of  stories  is  safer  in  the  matter  of 
keeping  the   attention.     If  the  book  can   be   easily 


^.vt     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

laid    down,    it    is    always    agreeable   to    take    it    up 
again. 

Trollope  set  out  in  the  most  systematic  way  to 
produce  a  series  of  novels  illustrating  certain  sections 
of  England,  certain  types  of  English  society;  stead- 
ily, for  a  life-time,  with  the  artisan's  skilful  hand,  he 
labored  at  the  craft.  He  is  the  very  antithesis  of 
the  erraticisms  and  irregularities  of  genius.  He  went 
to  his  daily  stint  of  work,  by  night  and  day,  on  sea 
or  land,  exactly  as  the  merchant  goes  to  his  office, 
the  mechanic  to  his  shop.  He  wrote  with  a  watch 
before  him,  two  hundred  and  fifty  words  to  fifteen 
minutes.  But  he  had  the  most  unusual  faculty  of 
direct,  unprejudiced,  clear  observation;  he  trained 
himself  to  set  down  what  he  saw  and  to  remember  it. 
And  he  also  had  the  constructive  ability  to  shape  and 
carry  on  his  story  so  as  to  create  the  effect  of  growth, 
along  with  an  equally  valuable  power  of  sympathetic 
characterization,  so  that  you  know  and  understand 
his  folk.  Add  to  this  a  style  perfectly  accordant 
with  the  unobtrusive  harmony  of  the  picture,  and  the 
main  elements  of  Trollope's  appeal  have  been  enum- 
erated. Yet  has  he  not  been  entirely  explained. 
His  art — meaning  the  skilled  handling  of  his  material 
— can  hardly  be  praised  too  much ;  it  is  so  easy  to 
underestimate  because  it  is  so  unshowy.  Few  had  a 
nicer  sense  of  scale  and  tone ;  he  gets  his  effects  often 
because  of  this  harmony  of  adjustment.  For  one 
example,  "  The  Warden  "  is  a  relatively  short  piece 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  255 

of  fiction  which  opens  the  famous  Chronicles  of 
Barset  series.  Its  interest  cuhninates  in  the  going 
of  the  Reverend  Septimus  Harding  to  London 
from  his  quiet  country  home,  in  order  to  prevent  a 
young  couple  from  marrying.  The  whole  situation 
is  tiny,  a  mere  corner  flurry.  But  so  admirably  has 
the  climax  been  prepared,  so  organic  is  it  to  all  that 
went  before  in  the  way  of  preparation,  that  the  result 
is  positively  thrilling:  a  wonderful  example  of  the 
principle  of  key  and  relation. 

Or  again,  in  that  scene  which  is  a  favorite  with  all 
Trollope's  readers,  where  the  arrogant  Mrs.  Proudie 
is  rebuked  by  the  gaunt  Mr.  Crawley,  the  eff^ect  of 
his  famous  "  Peace,  woman !  "  is  tremendous  only 
because  it  is  a  dash  of  vivid  red  in  a  composition 
where  the  general  color  scheme  is  low  and  subdued. 

In  view  of  this  faculty,  it  will  not  do  to  regard 
Trollope  as  a  kind  of  mechanic  who  began  one  novel 
the  day  he  finished  another  and  often  carried  on  two 
or  three  at  the  same  time,  like  a  juggler  with  his 
balls,  with  no  conception  of  them  as  artistic  wholes. 
He  says  himself  that  he  began  a  piece  of  fiction 
with  no  full  plan.  But,  with  his  very  obvious  skill 
prodigally  proved  from  his  work,  we  may  beg  leave 
to  take  all  such  statements  in  a  qualified  sense:  for 
the  kind  of  fiction  he  aimed  at  he  surely  developed  a 
technique  not  only  adequate  but  of  very  unusual 
excellence. 

Trollope  was  a  voluminous  writer:  he  gives  in  his 


256   :mastki{S  or  tiik  English  novel 

(lolii^htlul  .lutohio^raph^'  the  list  of  his  own  works 
ami  it  nimihcrs  ii])\vai(ls  of  sixty  titles,  of  which  over 
forty  are  fiction.  His  capacity  for  writing,  judged 
by  mere  bulk,  appears  to  have  been  inherited ;  for 
his  mother,  turning  authoress  at  fifty  years  of  age, 
produced  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  fourteen 
volumes !  There  is  inferior  work,  and  plenty  of  it, 
among  tlic  sum-total  of  his  activity,  but  two  series, 
amounting  to  about  twenty  books,  include  the  fiction 
upon  which  his  fame  so  solidly  rests:  the  Cathedral 
series  and  the  Parliamentary  series.  In  the  former, 
choosing  the  southern-western  counties  of  Wiltshire 
and  Hants  as  Hardy  chose  Wcssex  for  his  peculiar 
venue,  he  described  the  clerical  life  of  his  land  as  it 
had  never  been  described  before,  showing  the  type  as 
made  up  of  men  like  unto  other  men,  unromantic, 
often  this-worldly  and  smug,  yet  varying  the  type, 
making  room  for  such  an  idealist  as  Crawley  as  well 
as  for  sleek  bishops  and  ecclesiastical  wire-pullers. 
Neither  his  young  women  nor  his  holy  men  are  over- 
drawn a  jot:  they  have  the  continence  of  Nature. 
But  they  are  not  cynically  presented.  You  like  them 
and  take  pleasure  in  their  society ;  they  are  so  beauti- 
fully true !  The  inspiration  of  these  studies  came  to 
him  as  he  walked  under  the  shadow  of  Salisbury 
Cathedral ;  and  one  is  never  far  away  from  the  in- 
fluence of  the  cathedral  class.  The  life  is  the  w^orldy- 
godly  life  of  that  microcosm,  a  small,  genteel,  con- 
ventional urban  society ;  in  sharp  contrast  with  the 


TROLLOPS  AND  OTHERS  257 

life  depicted  by  Hardy  in  the  same  part  of  the  land, — 
but  like  another  world,  because  his  portraiture  finds 
its  subjects  among  peasant-folk  and  yeoman — the 
true  primitive  types  whose  speech  is  slow  and  their 
roots  deep  down  in  the  soil. 

The  realism  of  Trollope  was  not  confined  to  the 
mere  reproduction  of  externals ;  he  gave  the  illusion 
of  character,  without  departing  from  what  can  be 
verified  by  what  men  know.  His  photographs  were 
largely  imaginary,  as  all  artistic  work  must  be ;  he 
constructed  his  stories  out  of  his  own  mind.  But 
all  is  based  on  what  may  be  called  a  splendidl}'^ 
reasoned  and  reasonable  experience  with  Life.  His 
especial  service  was  thus  to  instruct  us  about  English 
society,  without  tedium,  within  a  domain  which  was 
voluntarily  selected  for  his  own.  In  this  he  was 
also  a  pioneer  in  that  local  fiction  which  is  a  geo- 
graphical effect  of  realism.  And  to  help  him  in  this 
setting  down  of  what  he  believed  to  be  true  of  human- 
ity, was  a  style  so  lucid  and  simple  as  perfectly  to 
serve  his  purpose.  For  unobtrusive  ease,  idiomatic 
naturalness  and  that  familiarity  which  escapes  vul- 
garity and  retains  a  quiet  distinction,  no  one  has 
excelled  him.  It  is  one  reason  why  we  feel  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  his  characters.  Mr.  Howells 
declares  it  is  Trollope  who  is  most  like  Austen  "  in 
simple  honesty  and  instinctive  truth,  as  unphiloso- 
phized  as  the  light  of  common  day  " — though  he  goes 
on  to  deplore  that  he  too  often  preferred  to  be  "  like 


258    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

the  caricaturist  Thackeray  " — a  somewhat  hartl  say- 
ing. It  is  a  particular  comfort  to  read  such  a  writer 
when  intensely  personal  psychology  is  the  order  of 
the  day  and  neither  style  nor  interpretation  in  fiction 
is  simple. 

If  Trollope  can  be  said  to  be  derivative  at  all, 
it  is  Thackeray  who  most  influenced  him.  He  avows 
his  admiration,  wrote  the  other's  life,  and  deemed 
him  one  who  advanced  truth-telling  in  the  Novel. 
Yet,  as  was  stated,  he  did  not  altogether  approve 
of  the  Master,  thinking  his  satire  too  steady  a  view 
instead  of  an  occasional  weapon.  Indeed  his  strict- 
ures in  the  biography  have  at  times  a  cool,  almost 
hostile  sound.  He  may  or  may  not  have  taken  a 
hint  from  Thackeray  on  the  re-introduction  of  char- 
acters in  other  books — a  pleasant  device  long  ante- 
dating the  nineteenth  century,  since  one  finds  it  in 
Lyly's  "  Euphues."  Trollope  also  disliked  Dickens' 
habit  of  exaggeration  (as  he  thought  it)  even  when 
it  was  used  in  the  interests  of  reform,  and  satirized 
the  tendency  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Popular  Sentiment 
in   "The   Warden." 

The  more  one  studies  Trollope  and  the  farther 
he  recedes  into  the  past,  the  firmer  grows  the  con- 
viction that  he  is  a  very  distinctive  figure  of  Vic- 
torian fiction,  a  pioneer  who  led  the  way  and  was  to 
be  followed  by  a  horde  of  secondary  realistic  novel- 
ists who  could  imitate  his  methods  but  not  reproduce 
his  pleasant  effect. 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  259 

VI 

The  Brontes,  coming  when  they  did,  before  1850, 
are  a  curious  study.  Realism  was  growing  daily  and 
destined  to  be  the  fashion  of  the  literary  to-morrow. 
But  "  Jane  Eyre "  is  the  product  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  isolation,  her  morbidly  introspective  nature, 
her  painful  sense  of  personal  duty,  the  inextinguish- 
able romance  that  was  hers  as  the  leal  descendant 
of  a  race  of  Irish  story-tellers.  She  looked  up  to 
and  worshipped  Thackeray,  but  produced  fiction  that 
was  like  something  from  another  world.  She  and 
her  sisters,  especially  Emily,  whose  vivid  "  Wuthering 
Heights  "  has  all  the  effect  of  a  visitant  from  a  re- 
mote planet,  are  strangely  unrelated  to  the  general 
course  of  the  nineteenth  century.  They  seem  bom 
out  of  time ;  they  would  have  left  a  more  lasting 
impress  upon  English  fiction  had  they  come  before — 
or  after.  There  are  unquestionable  qualities  of  real- 
ism in  "  Jane  Eyre,"  but  it  is  romantic  to  the  core, 
sentimental,  melodramatic.  Rochester  is  an  elder 
St.  Elmo — hardly  truer  as  a  human  being;  Jane's 
sacrificial  worship  goes  back  to  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  that  famous  mad-woman's  shriek  in  the 
night  is  a  moment  to  be  boasted  of  on  the  Bowery. 
And  this  was  her  most  typical  book,  that  which  gave 
her  fame.  The  others,  "  Villctte  "  and  the  rest,  are 
more  truly  representative  of  the  realistic  trend  of 
the  day,  but  withal   though   interesting,  less   char- 


2G0     MASTERS  C)i'  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

ac'loristic,  less  liked.  In  proportion  as  she  is  ro- 
mantic is  she  renionibercd.  The  streak  of  genius  in 
tliese  gifted  women  nuist  not  blind  us  to  the  isolation, 
the  unrelated  nature  of  tlieir  work  to  the  main  course 
of  the  Novel.    The  J  are  exceptions  to  the  rule. 


VII 


This  group  then  of  novelists,  sinking  all  individual 
differences,  marks  the  progress  of  the  method  of 
realism  over  the  romance.  Scarcely  one  is  conspicu- 
ous for  achievement  in  the  latter,  while  almost  all 
of  them  did  yeoman  service  in  the  former.  In  some 
cases — those  of  Disraeli  and  Bulwer — the  transition 
is  seen  where  their  earlier  and  later  work  is  con- 
trasted ;  with  a  writer  like  Trollopc,  the  newer  method 
completely  triumphs.  Even  in  so  confirmed  a  ro- 
mance-maker as  Wilkie  Collins,  to  whom  plot  was 
everything  and  whose  cunning  of  hand  in  this  is 
notorious,  there  is  a  concession  to  the  new  ideal  of 
Truth.  He  was  touched  by  his  time  in  the  matter 
of  naturalness  of  dialogue,  though  not  of  event. 
Wildly  improbable  and  wooden  as  his  themes  may 
now  seem,  their  manner  is  realistic,  realism  of  speech, 
in  fact,  being  an  element  in  his  cffectivism.  Even 
the  author  of  "  The  Moonstone  "  is  scotched  by  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  and  in  the  preface  to  "  Armsdale  " 
declares  for  a  greater  freedom  of  theme — one  of  the 
first  announcements  of  that  desire  for  an  extension 


TROLLOPE  AND  OTHERS  261 

of  the  subject-matter  which  was  in  the  next  genera- 
tion to  bring  such  a  change. 

It  seems  just  to  represent  all  these  secondary  nov- 
elists as  subsidiary  to  Dickens,  Thackeray  and  Eliot. 
Fascinating  isolated  figures  like  Borrow,  who  will 
always  be  cherished  by  the  few,  are  perforce  passed 
by.  We  are  trying  to  keep  both  quality  and  in- 
fluence in  mind,  with  the  desire  to  show  the  writers 
not  by  themselves  alone  but  as  part  of  a  stream  of 
tendency  which  has  made  the  English  Novel  the  dis- 
tinct form  it  is  to-day.  Even  a  resounding  genius, 
in  this  view,  may  have  less  meaning  than  an  apparent 
plodder  like  Trollope,  who,  as  time  goes  by,  is  seen 
more  clearly  to  be  one  of  the  shaping  forces  in  the 
development  of  a  literary  form. 


CHAPTER  XII 

HARDY  AND  MEREDITH 

We  liave  seen  in  chapter  seventli,  ]iow  the  influence 
of  Balzac  introduced  to  modern  fiction  that  extension 
of  subject  and  tliat  preference  for  the  external  fact 
widel}'  productive  of  change  in  the  novel-making  of 
the  continent  and  of  English-speaking  lands.  As  the 
year  1830  was  given  significance  by  him,  so,  a  genera- 
tion later,  the  year  1870  was  given  significance  by 
Zola.  England,  like  other  lands  cultivating  the  Novel, 
felt  the  influence.  Balzac  brought  to  fiction  a  greater 
franchise  of  theme :  Zola  taught  it  to  regard  a  human 
being — individual  or  collectively  social — as  primarily 
animal :  that  is,  he  explains  action  on  this  hypothesis. 
And  as  an  inevitable  consequence,  realism  passed  to 
the  so-called  naturalism.  Zola  believed  in  this  view 
as  a  theory  and  his  practice,  not  always  consistent 
with  it,  was  sufficiently  so  in  the  famous  Rougon- 
iNIacquart  series  of  novels  begun  the  year  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  war,  to  establish  it  as  a  method, 
and  a  school  of  fiction.  Naturalism,  linking  hands 
with  rart  pour  art — "  a  fine  phrase  is  a  moral  action 
— there  is  no  other  morality  in  literature,"  cried  Zola 
— became  a  banner-cr}',  with  "  the  flesh  is  all "  its 

263 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  263 

chief  article  of  belief.  No  study  of  the  growth  of 
English  fiction  can  ignore  this  typical  modem  move- 
ment, however  unpleasant  it  may  be  to  follow  it. 
The  baser  and  more  brutal  phases  of  the  Novel  con- 
tinental and  insular  look  to  this  derivation.  Zola's 
remarkable  pronunciamento  "  The  Experimental 
Novel,"  proves  how  honestly  he  espoused  the  doctrine 
of  the  realist,  how  blind  he  is  to  its  partial  view. 
His  attempt  to  subject  the  art  of  fiction  to  the  exact 
laws  of  science,  is  an  illustration  of  the  influence 
of  scientific  thought  upon  a  mind  not  broadly  cul- 
tured, though  of  unusual  native  quality.  Realism 
of  the  modern  kind — the  kind  for  which  Zola  stands 
— is  the  result  in  a  form  of  literature  of  the  necessary 
intellectual  unrest  following  on  the  abandonment  of 
older  religious  ideals.  Science  had  forced  men  to 
give  up  certain  theological  conceptions ;  death,  im- 
mortality, God,  Man, — these  were  all  differently  un- 
derstood, and  a  period  of  readjustment,  doubt  and 
negation,  of  misery  and  despair,  was  the  natural 
issue.  Man,  being  naturally  religious,  was  sure 
sooner  or  later  to  secure  a  new  and  more  hopeful 
faith:  it  was  a  matter  of  spiritual  self-preservation. 
But  realism  in  letters,  for  the  moment,  before  a  new 
theory  had  been  formulated,  was  a  kind  of  pis  oiler 
by  which  literature  could  be  produced  and  attention 
given  to  the  tangible  things  of  this  earth,  many  of 
them  not  before  thoroughly  exploited ;  the  things  of 
the  mind,  of  the  Spirit,  were  certain  to  be  exploited 


'J(U     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

later,  when  a  broader  creed  should  come.  The  new 
romanticism  and  idealism  of  our  day  marks  this 
return.  Zola's  theory  is  now  seen  to  be  wrong,  and 
there  has  followed  a  violent  reaction  from  the  realistic 
tenets,  even  in  Paris,  its  citadel.  But  for  some  years, 
it  held  tj'rannous  sway  and  its  leader  was  a  man  of 
genius,  his  work  distinctive,  remarkable;  at  its  best, 
great, — in  spite  of,  rather  than  because  of,  his 
principles.  It  was  in  the  later  Trilogy  of  the  cities 
that,  using  a  broader  formula,  he  came  into  full  ex- 
pression of  what  was  in  him ;  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life  he  was  moving,  both  as  man  and  artist, 
in  the  right  direction.  Yet  naturally  it  was  novels 
like  "  Nana  "  and  "  L'Assomoir  "  that  gave  him  his 
vogue ;  and  their  obsession  with  the  fleshly  gave  them 
for  the  moment  a  strange  distinction :  for  years  their 
author  was  regarded  as  the  founder  of  a  school  and 
its  most  formidable  exponent.  He  wielded  an  influ- 
ence that  rarely  falls  to  a  maker  of  stories.  And 
although  realism  in  its  extreme  manifestations  no 
longer  holds  exclusive  sway,  Zola's  impulse  is  still 
at  work  in  the  modem  Novel.  Historically,  his  name 
will  always  be  of  interest. 


Thomas  Hardy  is  a  realist  in  a  sense  true  of  no 
English  novelist  of  anything  like  equal  rank  pre- 
ceding him :  his  literary  genealogy  is  French,  for  his 
"  Jude    The   Obscure "    has   no   English    prototype. 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  265 

except  the  earlier  work  of  George  Moore,  whose  in- 
spiration is  even  more  definitely  Paris.  To  study 
Hardy's  development  for  a  period  of  about  twenty- 
five  years  from  "  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree "  to 
"  Jude,"  is  to  review,  as  they  are  expressed  in  the 
work  of  one  great  English  novelist,  the  literary  ideals 
before  and  after  Zola.  Few  will  cavil  at  the  in- 
clusion in  our  study  of  a  living  author  like  Hardy. 
His  work  ranks  with  the  most  influential  of  our 
time;  so  much  may  be  seen  already.  His  writing  of 
fiction,  moreover,  or  at  least  of  Novels,  seems  to  be 
finished.  And  like  Meredith,  he  is  a  man  of  genius 
and,  strictly  speaking,  a  finer  artist  than  the  elder 
author.  For  quality,  then,  and  significance  of  ac- 
complishment. Hardy  may  well  be  examined  with  the 
masters  whose  record  is  rounded  out  by  death.  He 
offers  a  fine  example  of  the  logic  of  modern  realism, 
as  it  has  been  applied  by  a  first-class  mind  to  the  art 
of  fiction.  In  Meredith,  on  the  contrary,  is  shown 
a  sort  of  synthesis  of  the  realistic  and  poetic-philo- 
sophic interpretation.  Hardy  is  for  this  reason 
easier  to  understand  and  explain;  Meredith  refuses 
classification. 

The  elements  of  strength  in  Thomas  Hardy  can 
be  made  out  clearly ;  they  are  not  elusive.  Wisely, 
he  has  chosen  to  do  a  very  definite  thing  and,  with 
rare  perseverance  and  skill,  he  has  done  it.  He 
selected  as  setting  the  south-western  part  of  England 
— Wcsscx,  is  the  ancient  name  he  gave  it — that  cm- 


266     MASTERS  OK  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

braces  Somersetshire  and  contiguous  counties,  be- 
cause he  felt  that  the  tjpcs  of  humanity  and  the 
view  of  Hfc  he  wished  to  sliow  could  best  be  thrown 
out  against  tlie  primitive  background.  Certain  ele- 
mental trutlis  about  men  and  women,  he  believed,  lost 
sight  of  in  the  kaleidoscopic  attritions  of  the  town, 
might  there  be  clearly  seen.  The  choice  of  locale  was 
thus  part  of  an  attitude  toward  life.  That  attitude 
or  view  may  be  described  fairly  well  as  one  of 
philosophic  fatalism. 

It  has  not  the  cold  removedness  of  the  stoic:  it 
has  pit}'  in  it,  even  love.  But  it  is  deeply  sad,  some- 
times bitter.  In  Hardy's  presentation  of  Nature 
(a  remark  applying  to  some  extent  to  a  younger  nov- 
elist who  shows  his  influence,  Phillpotts),  she  is  dis- 
played as  an  ironic  expression,  with  even  malignant 
moods,  of  a  supreme  cosmic  indifference  to  the 
petty  fate  of  that  animalcule,  man.  And  this,  in 
spite  of  a  curious  power  she  possesses  of  consoling 
him  and  of  charming  him  by  blandishments  that  cheat 
the  loneliness  of  his  soul.  There  is  no  purer  example 
of  tragedy  in  modern  literature  than  Mr.  Hardy's 
strongest,  most  mature  stories.  A  mind  deeply  seri- 
ous and  honest,  interprets  the  human  case  in  this 
wise  and  conceives  that  the  underlying  pitilessness 
can  most  graphically  be  conveyed  in  a  setting  like 
that  of  Egdon  Heath,  where  the  great  silent  forces 
of  Nature  somberly  interblend  with  the  forces  set 
in  motion  by  the  human  will,  both  futile  to  produce 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  267 

happiness.  Even  the  attempt  to  be  virtuous  fails 
in  "  Jude  " :  as  the  attempt  to  be  happy  does  in 
"  Tess."  That  sardonic,  final  thought  in  the  last- 
named  book  will  not  out  of  our  ears:  Fate  had 
played  its  last  little  jest  with  poor  Tess. 

But  there  are  mitigations,  many  and  welcome. 
Hardy  has  the  most  delightful  humor.  His  peasants 
and  simple  middle-class  folk  are  as  distinctive  and 
enjoyable  as  anything  since  Shakspere.  He  also 
has  a  more  sophisticated,  cutting  humor — tipped  with 
irony  and  tart  to  the  taste — which  he  uses  in  those 
stories  or  scenes  where  urbanites  mingle  with  his 
country  folk.  But  his  humorous  triumphs  are 
bucolic.  And  for  another  source  of  keenest  pleasure, 
there  is  his  style,  ennobling  all  his  work.  Whether 
for  the  plastic  manipulation  of  dialogue  or  the  elo- 
quencies  and  exactitudes  of  description,  he  is  em- 
phatically a  master.  His  mind,  pagan  in  its  bent, 
is  splendidly  broad  in  its  comprehension  of 
the  arcana  of  Nature  and  that  of  a  poet  sensitive 
to  all  the  witchery  of  a  world  which  at  core  is 
inscrutably  dark  and  mysterious.  He  knows,  none 
better,  of  the  comfort  to  be  got  even  from  the  sad 
when  its  beauty  is  made  palpitating.  No  one  before 
him,  not  Meredith  himself,  has  so  interfused  Nature 
with  man  as  to  bring  out  the  thought  of  man's 
ancient  origin  in  the  earth,  his  birth-ties,  and  her 
claims  on  his  allegiance.  This  gives  a  rare  savor 
to  his  handling  of  what  with  most  novelists  is  often 


i.'(58     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

mere  bjickground.  Egdon  Heath  was  mentioned; 
the  setting  in  "  The  Return  of  the  Native  "  is  not 
background  in  tlie  usual  sense;  that  mighty  stretch 
of  moorland  is  almost  like  the  central  actor  of  the 
drama,  so  potent  is  its  influence  upon  the  fate  of  the 
other  characters.  So  with  "  The  Woodlanders  "  and 
still  other  stories.  Take  away  this  subtle  and  vital 
relation  of  man  to  Nature,  and  the  whole  organism 
collapses.  Environment  with  Hardy  is  atmosphere, 
influence,  often  fate  itself.  Being  a  scientist  in  the 
cast  of  his  intellect,  although  by  temperament  a  poet, 
he  believes  in  environment  as  the  shaping  power  con- 
ceived of  by  Taine  and  Zola.  It  is  this  use  of 
Nature  as  a  power  upon  people  of  deep,  strong, 
simple  character,  showing  the  sweep  of  forces  far 
more  potent  than  the  conventions  of  the  polite  world, 
which  distinguishes  Hardy's  fiction.  Fate  with  him 
being  so  largely  that  impersonal  thing,  environment; 
allied  with  temperament  (for  which  he  is  not  re- 
sponsible), and  with  opportunity — another  element 
of  luck — it  follows  logically  that  man  is  the  sport  of 
the  gods.  Hardy  is  unable,  like  other  determinists, 
to  escape  the  dilemma  of  free-will  versus  predestina- 
tion, and  that  other  crux,  the  imputation  of  person- 
ality to  the  workings  of  so-called  natural  laws. 
Indeed  curiously,  in  his  gigantic  poem-cycle,  "  the 
Dynasts,"  the  culmination  of  his  life-work,  he  seems 
to  hint  at  a  plan  of  the  universe  which  may  be  bene- 
ficial. 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  269 

To  name  another  quality  that  gives  distinction 
to  Hardy's  work :  his  fiction  is  notably  well-built,  and 
he  is  a  resourceful  technician.  Often,  the  way  he 
seizes  a  plot  and  gives  it  proportionate  progress  to 
an  end  that  is  inevitable,  exhibits  a  well-nigh  perfect 
art.  Hardy's  novels,  for  architectural  excellence, 
are  really  wonderful  and  will  richly  repay  careful 
study  in  this  respect.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
because  his  original  profession  was  that  of  an  arch- 
itect, his  constructive  ability  may  have  been  carried 
over  to  another  craft.  This  may  be  fantastic ;  but 
the  fact  remains  that  for  the  handling  of  material  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  eliminate  the  unnecessary,  and 
move  steadily  toward  the  climax,  while  ever  imitating 
though  not  reproducing,  the  unartificial  gait  of  life, 
Hardy  has  no  superior  in  English  fiction  and  very 
few  beyond  it.  These  ameliorations  of  humor  and 
pity,  these  virtues  of  style  and  architectural  hand- 
ling make  the  reading  of  Thomas  Hardy  a  literary 
experience,  and  very  far  from  an  undiluted  course 
in  Pessimism.  A  sane,  vigorous,  masculine  mind  is 
at  work  in  all  his  fiction  up  to  its  very  latest.  Yet 
it  were  idle  to  deny  the  main  trend  of  his  teaching. 
It  will  be  well  to  trace  with  some  care  the  change 
which  has  crept  gradually  over  his  view  of  the  world. 
As  his  development  of  thought  is  studied  in  the  suc- 
cessive novels  he  produced  between  1871  and  1898, 
it  may  appear  that  there  is  little  fundamental  change 
in  outlook:  the  tragic  note,  and  the  dark  theory  of 


i370    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

existence,  explicit  in  "  Tcss  "  and  "  .hide,"  is  more 
or  less  implicit  in  "  Desperate  Remedies. "  But 
change  there  is,  to  be  found  in  the  deepening  of  the 
feeling,  the  pushing  of  a  theory  to  its  logical  ex- 
treme. This  opening  tale,  read  in  the  light  of  what 
he  was  to  do,  strikes  one  as  un-Hardy-like  in  its 
rather  complex  plot,  with  its  melodramatic  tinge  of 
incident. 

The  second  book,  "  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree," 
is  a  blithe,  bright  woodland  comedy  and  it  would 
have  been  convenient  for  a  cut-and-dried  theory  of 
Hardy's  growth  from  lightness  to  gravity,  had  it 
come  first.  It  is,  rather,  a  happy  interlude,  hardly 
representative  of  his  main  interest,  save  for  its  clear- 
cut  characterizations  of  country  life  and  its  idyllic 
flavor.  The  novel  that  trod  on  its  heels,  "  A  Pair 
of  Blue  Eyes,"  maugre  its  innocently  Delia  Cruscan 
title, — it  sounds  like  a  typical  effort  of  "  The 
Duchess," — has  the  tragic  end  which  light-minded 
readers  have  come  to  dread  in  this  author.  He 
showed  his  hand  thus  comparatively  early  and  hence- 
forth was  to  have  the  courage  of  his  convictions  in 
depicting  human  fate  as  he  saw  it — not  as  the  reader 
wished  it. 

In  considering  the  books  that  subsequently  ap- 
peared, to  strengthen  Hardy's  place  with  those  who 
know  fine  fiction,  they  are  seen  to  have  his  genuine 
hall-mark,  just  in  proportion  as  they  are  Wessex 
through  and  through:  in  the  interplay  of  character 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  271 

and  environment  there,  we  get  his  deepest  expres- 
sion as  artist  and  interpreter.  The  really  great 
novels  are  "  Far  From  the  Madding  Crowd,"  "  The 
Return  of  the  Native,"  "The  Mayor  of  Caster- 
bridge  "  and  "  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles  " :  when  he 
shifts  the  scene  to  London,  as  in  "  The  Hand  of 
Ethelberta  "  or  introduces  sophisticated  types  as  in 
the  dull  "  Laodicean,"  it  means  comparative  failure. 
Mother  soil  (he  is  by  birth  a  Dorchester  man  and 
lives  there  still)  gives  him  idiosyncrasy,  flavor, 
strength.  That  the  best,  most  representative  work 
of  Hardy  is  to  be  seen  in  two  novels  of  his  middle 
career,  "  Far  From  the  Madding  Crowd  "  and  "  The 
Return  of  the  Native "  rather  than  in  the  later 
stories,  "  Tess  "  and  "  Jude,"  can  be  established,  I 
think,  purely  on  the  ground  of  art,  without  dragging 
cheap  charges  of  immorality  into  the  discussion. 
In  the  last  analysis,  questions  of  art  always  become 
a  question  of  ethics:  the  separation  is  arbitrary  and 
unnatural.  That  "  Tess  "  is  the  book  into  which  the 
author  has  most  intensely  put  his  mature  belief,  may 
be  true:  it  is  quiveringly  alive,  vital  as  only  that  is 
which  comes  from  the  deeps  of  a  man's  being.  But 
Hardy  is  so  much  a  special  pleader  for  Tess,  that 
the  argument  suffers  and  a  grave  fault  is  apparent 
when  the  story's  climax  is  studied.  There  is  an 
intrusion  of  what  seems  like  factitious  melodrama 
instead  of  that  tissue  of  events  which  one  expects 
from  a  stem  necessitarian.     Tess  need  not  be  a  mur- 


272    MASTERS  OI"  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

dcrcss ;  tliorcforc,  tlie  work  should  not  so  conclude, 
for  this  is  an  autiior  whose  merit  is  that  his  cHccts 
of  character  arc  causal.  He  is  fatalistic,  yes ;  but 
in  general  he  royally  disdains  the  cheap  tricks  of 
plot  whereby  cxcitnicnt  is  furnished  at  tlie  expense 
of  credulity  and  verisimilitude.  In  Tess's  end,  there 
is  a  suspicion  of  sensation  for  its  own  sake — a  sug- 
gestion of  savage  joy  in  shocking  sensibilities.  Of 
course,  the  result  is  most  powerful;  but  the  superior 
power  of  the  novel  is  not  here  so  much  as  in  its 
splendid  sympathy  and  truth.  He  has  made  this 
woman's  life-history  deeply  affecting  and  is  right  in 
claiming  that  she  is  a  pure  soul,  judged  by  intention. 
The  heart  feels  that  she  is  sinned  against  rather 
than  sinning  and  in  the  spectacle  of  her  fall  finds 
food  for  thought  "  too  deep  for  tears."  At  the  same 
time,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  Tess's  piteous 
plight, — the  fact  that  fate  has  proved  too  strong  for 
a  soul  so  high  in  its  capacity  for  unselfish  and  noble 
love, — is  based  upon  Hardy's  assumption  that  she 
could  not  help  it.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  his  philoso- 
phy, you  must  accept  his  premise,  or  call  Tess  (whom 
you  may  still  love)  morally  weak.  It  is  this  reserva- 
tion which  will  lead  many  to  place  the  book,  as  a 
work  of  art,  and  notwithstanding  its  noble  propor- 
tions and  compelling  power,  below  such  a  masterpiece 
as  "  The  Return  of  the  Native."  That  it  is  on  the 
whole  a  sane  and  wholesome  work,  however,  may  be 
affirmed  by  one  who  finds  Hardy's  last  novel  "  Jude 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  273 

the  Obscure  "  neither.  For  there  is  a  profound  dif- 
ference between  two  such  creations.  In  the  former, 
there  is  a  piquant  sense  of  the  pathos  and  the  awe- 
someness  of  life,  but  not  of  its  unreheved  ugliness 
and  disgust;  an  impression  which  is  received  from 
the  latter.  Not  only  is  "  Jude  "  "  a  tragedy  of  un- 
fulfilled aim  "  as  the  author  calls  it ;  so  is  "  Tess  " ; 
but  it  fills  the  reader  with  a  kind  of  sullen  rage 
to  be  an  eye-witness  of  the  foul  and  brutal:  he  is 
asked  to  see  a  drama  develop  beside  a  pig-sty.  It  is 
therefore,  intensely  unesthetic  which,  if  true,  is  a 
word  of  condemnation  for  any  work  of  art.  It  is 
deficient  in  poetry,  in  the  broad  sense;  that,  rather 
than  frankness  of  treatment,  is  the  trouble  with  it. 
And  intellectually,  it  would  seem  to  be  the  result 
of  a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour  of  the  author :  a  megrim 
of  the  soul.  Elements  of  greatness  it  has ;  a  fine 
motive,  too ;  to  display  the  impossibilities  for  evolu- 
tion on  the  part  of  an  aspiring  soul  hampered  by 
circumstances  and  weak  where  most  humanity  is 
weak,  in  the  exercise  of  sex-passion.  A  not  dissimilar 
theme  as  it  is  worked  out  by  Daudet  in  "  Le  Petite 
Chose  "  is  beautiful  in  its  pathos ;  in  "  Jude  "  there 
is  something  shuddering  about  the  arbitrary  piling-up 
of  horror;  the  modesty  of  nature  is  overstept;  it 
is  not  a  truly  proportioned  view  of  life,  one  feels ; 
if  life  were  really  so  bad  as  that,  no  one  would  be 
willing  to  live  it,  much  less  exhibit  the  cheerfulness 
which  is   characteristic  of  the  majority   of  human 


27'i    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

bcinn^s.  It  is  a  fair  guess  that  in  tlie  end  it  will  be 
called  the  artistic  mistake  of  a  novelist  of  genius. 
Its  harsh  reception  by  critics  in  England  and  America 
was  referred  to  by  tlie  author  privately  as  an  ex- 
ample of  the  "  crass  Philistinism  "  of  criticism  in 
those  lands :  Mr.  Hardy  felt  that  on  the  continent 
alone  was  the  book  understood,  appreciated.  I  im- 
agine, however,  that  whatever  the  limitations  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  view,  it  comes  close  to  the  ultimate  de- 
cision to  be  passed  upon  this  work. 

One  of  the  striking  things  about  these  Novels  is 
the  sense  that  they  convey  of  the  largeness  of  life. 
The  action  moves  on  a  narrow  stage  set  with  the 
austere  simplicity  of  the  Elizabethans ;  the  person- 
ages are  extremely  commonplace,  the  incidents  in  the 
main  small  and  unexciting.  Yet  the  tremendousness 
of  human  fate  is  constantly  implied  and  brought 
home  in  the  most  impressive  way.  This  is  because 
all  have  spiritual  value ;  if  the  survey  be  not  wide, 
it  sinks  deep  to  the  psychic  center;  and  what  matters 
vision  that  circles  the  globe,  if  it  lacks  grasp,  pene- 
tration, uplift?  These,  Hardy  has.  When  one  calls 
his  peasants  Shaksperian,  one  is  trying  to  express 
the  strength  and  savor,  the  rich  earthy  quality  like 
fresh  loam  that  pertains  to  these  quaint  figures,  so 
evidently  observed  on  the  ground,  and  lovingly  lifted 
over  into  literature.  Their  speech  bewrays  them  and 
is  an  index  of  their  slow,  shrewd  minds. 

Nor  is  his  serious  characterization  less  fine  and 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  275 

representative  than  his  humorous ;  especially  his 
women.  It  is  puzzling  to  say  whether  Hardy's  comic 
men,  or  his  subtly  drawn,  sympathetically  visualized 
women  are  to  be  named  first  in  his  praise:  for  power 
in  both,  and  for  the  handling  of  nature,  he  will  be 
long  remembered.  Bathsheba,  Eustacia,  Tess  and 
the  rest,  they  take  hold  on  the  very  heart-strings  and 
are  known  as  we  know  our  very  own.  It  is  not  that 
they  are  good  or  bad, — generally  they  are  both ;  it 
is  that  they  are  beautifully,  terribly  human.  They 
mostly  lack  the  pettiness  that  so  often  fatally  limits 
their  sex  and  quite  as  much,  they  lack  the  veneer 
that  obscures  the  broad  lines  of  character.  And  it 
is  natural  to  add,  while  thinking  of  Hardy's  women, 
that,  unlike  almost  all  the  Victorian  novelists,  he  has 
insisted  frankly,  but  in  the  main  without  offense, 
on  woman's  involvement  with  sex-passion ;  he  finds 
that  love,  in  a  Wessex  setting,  has  wider  range  than 
has  been  awarded  it  in  previous  study  of  sex  rela- 
tions. And  he  has  not  hesitated  to  depict  its  rootage 
in  the  flesh ;  not  overlooking  its  rise  in  the  spirit  to 
noblest  heights.  And  it  is  this  un-Anglo-Saxon-like 
comprehension  of  feminine  humanity  that  makes  him 
so  fair  to  the  sinning  woman  who  trusts  to  her  ruin 
or  proves  what  is  called  weak  because  of  the  generous 
movement  of  her  blood.  No  one  can  despise  faithful- 
hearted  Fannie  Robin,  dragging  herself  to  the  poor- 
house  along  Casterbridge  highway ;  that  scene,  which 
bites  itself  upon  the  memory,  is  fairly  bathed  in  an 


27(>     .MASTKHS  OF  THF,   RNGLTSII   NOVEL 

iinnuMise,  iiiuk'rstaiuliii^  V^^}'-  Altliou^li  H.-ird^  has 
tluis  used  the  freedom  of  France  in  treatment,  he  has, 
unhke  so  much  of  the  Gallic  realism,  remained  an 
idealist  in  never  denying  the  soul  of  love  while  speak- 
ing more  truthfully  concerning  its  body  than  the 
fiction-makers  before  him.  There  is  no  finer  handling 
of  sex-love  with  due  regard  to  its  dual  nature, — love 
that  grows  in  earth  3'et  flowers  until  it  looks  into 
heaven — than  Marty's  oft-quoted  beautiful  speech 
at  her  lover's  grave;  and  Hardy's  belief  rings  again 
in  the  defense  of  that  good  fellowship — that  camera- 
derie — which  can  grow  into  "  the  only  love  which  is 
as  strong  as  death — beside  which  the  passion  usually 
so-called  by  the  name  is  evanescent  as  steam."  A 
glimpse  like  that  of  Hardy's  mind  separates  him  at 
once  from  Maupassant's  view  of  the  world.  The 
traditions  of  English  fiction,  which  he  has  insisted 
on  disturbing,  have,  after  all,  been  strong  to  direct 
his  work,  as  they  have  that  of  all  the  writers  bom 
into  the  speech  and  nourished  on  its  racial  ideals. 
Another  reason  for  giving  the  stories  of  the  middle 
period,  such  as  "  The  Return  of  the  Native,"  prefer- 
ence over  those  that  are  later,  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  former  have  no  definite,  aggressive  theme ;  whereas 
"  Tess  "  announces  an  intention  on  the  title  page, 
"  Jude,"  in  a  foreword.  Whatever  view  of  life  may 
be  expressed  in  "  The  Mayor  of  Casterbridge,"  for 
example,  is  imbedded,  as  it  should  be,  in  the  course 
of  the   story.     This   tendency   towards    didacticism 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  277 

is  a  common  thing  in  the  cases  of  modern  writers 
of  fiction ;  it  spoiled  a  great  novelist  in  the  case  of 
Tolstoy,  with  compensatory  gains  in  another  direc- 
tion ;  of  those  of  English  stock,  one  thinks  of  Eliot, 
Howells,  Mrs,  Ward  and  many  another.  But  how- 
ever natural  this  may  be  in  an  age  like  ours,  the  art 
of  the  literary  product  is,  as  a  rule,  injured  by  the 
habit  of  using  fiction  as  a  jumping-board  for  theory. 
In  some  instances,  dullness  has  resulted.  Eliot  has 
not  escaped  scot-free.  With  Hardy,  he  is,  to  my 
taste,  never  dull.  Repellent  as  "  Jude  "  may  be,  it 
is  never  that.  But  a  hardness  of  manner  and  an 
unpleasant  bias  are  more  than  likely  to  follow  this 
aim,  to  the  fiction's  detriment. 

It  is  a  great  temptation  to  deflect  from  the  pur- 
pose of  this  work  in  order  to  discuss  Hardy's  short 
stories,  for  a  master  in  this  kind  he  is.  A  sketch  like 
"  The  Three  Strangers  "  is  as  truly  a  masterpiece  as 
Stevenson's  "  A  Lodgnng  for  The  Night."  It  must 
suffice  to  say  of  his  work  in  the  tale  that  it  enables 
the  author  to  give  further  assurance  of  his  power  of 
atmospheric  handling,  his  stippling  in  of  a  character 
by  a  few  strokes,  his  skill  in  dramatic  scene,  his 
knowledge  of  Wessex  types,  and  especially,  his  sub- 
dued but  permeating  pessimism.  There  is  nothing 
in  his  writings  more  quietly,  deeply  hopeless  than 
most  of  the  tales  in  the  collection  "  Life's  Little 
Ironies."  One  shrinks  away  from  the  truth  and 
terror  of  them  while  lured  by  their  charm.     The  short 


1278     iMASTEHS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

stories  increase  one's  athniration  for  the  artist,  but 
tlie  full,  more  virile  message  comes  from  the  Novels. 
It  is  matter  for  regret  that  "  Jude  the  Obscure," 
unless  the  signs  fail,  is  to  be  his  last  testament  in 
fiction.  For  such  a  man  to  cease  from  fiction  at 
scarce  sixty  can  but  be  deplored.  The  remark  takes 
on  added  pertinency  because  the  novelist  has  essayed 
in  lieu  of  fiction  the  poetic  drama,  a  form  in  which 
he  has  less  ease  and  authority. 

Coming  when  he  did  and  feeling  in  its  full  measure 
the  tidal  wave  from  France,  Hardy  was  compelled 
both  by  inward  and  outward  pressure  to  see  life  un- 
romanticall^'^,  so  far  as  the  human  fate  is  concerned : 
but  always  a  poet  at  heart  (he  began  with  verse), 
he  found  a  vent  for  that  side  of  his  being  in  Nature, 
in  great  cosmic  realities,  in  the  stormy,  passionate 
heart  of  humanity,  so  infinite  in  its  aspirations,  so 
doughty  in  its  heroisms,  so  pathetic  in  its  doom. 
There  is  something  noble  always  in  the  tragic  large- 
ness of  Hardy's  best  fiction.  His  grim  determinism 
is  softened  by  lyric  airs ;  and  even  when  man  is  most 
lonesome,  he  is  consoled  by  contact  with  "  the  pure, 
eternal  course  of  things  " ;  whose  august  flow  com- 
forts Arnold.  Because  of  his  art,  the  representative 
character  of  his  thought,  reflecting  in  prose,  as  does 
Matthew  Arnold  in  verse,  the  deeper  thought-currents 
of  the  time ;  and  because  too  of  the  personal  quality 
which  for  lack  of  a  better  word  one  still  must  call 
genius,  Thomas  Hard}'  is  sure  to  hold  his  place  in 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  279 

the  English  fiction  of  the  closing  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  is  to-day  the  most  distinguished 
living  novelist  using  that  speech  and  one  of  the  few 
to  be  recognized  and  honored  abroad.  No  writer  of 
fiction  between  1875  and  1900  has  more  definitely 
had  a  strong  influence  upon  the  English  Novel  as  to 
content,  scope  and  choice  of  subject.  If  his  convic- 
tions have  led  him  to  excess,  they  will  be  forgiven  and 
forgotten  in  the  light  of  the  serene  mastery  shed  by 
the  half  dozen  great  works  he  has  contributed  to 
English  literature. 

II 

Once  in  a  while — a  century  or  so,  maybe, — comes 
an  artist  who  refuses  to  be  classified.  Rules  fail  to 
explain  him :  he  makes  new  rules  in  the  end.  He 
seems  too  big  for  any  formula.  He  impresses  by 
the  might  of  his  personality,  teaching  the  world  what 
it  should  have  known  before,  that  the  personal  is  the 
life-blood  of  all  and  any  art.  Some  such  effect  is 
made  upon  the  critic  by  George  Meredith,  who  so 
recently  has  closed  his  eyes  to  the  shows  of  earth. 
One  can  find  in  him  almost  all  the  tendencies  of  Eng- 
lish fiction.  He  is  realist  and  romanticist,  frank 
lover  of  the  flesh,  lofty  idealist,  impressionist  and 
judge,  philosopher,  dramatist,  essayist,  master  of  the 
comic  and  above  all,  Poet.  Eloquence,  finesse, 
strength  and  sweetness,  the  limpid  and  the  cryptic, 
are  his  in  turn :  he  puts  on  when  he  will,  like  a  defen- 


2S0     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

sivc  armor,  a  style  to  frighten  all  but  the  elect.  And 
they  who  persist  and  discover  the  secret,  swear  that 
it  is  more  than  wortli  the  pains.  Perhaps  the  lesson 
of  it  all  is  that  a  first-class  writer,  creative  and  dis- 
tinctive, is  a  j)hcnonienon  transcending  school,  move- 
ment or  period.  George  Meredith  is  not,  if  we 
weigh  words,  the  greatest  English  novelist  to-day — 
for  both  Hardy  and  Stevenson  are  his  superiors  as 
artists:  but  he  is  the  greatest  man  who  has  written 
fiction. 

Although  he  was  alive  but  yesterday,  the  novel 
frequently  awarded  first  position  among  his  works, 
"  The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel,"  was  published  a 
good  half  century  ago.  Go  back  to  it,  get  its  mean- 
ing, then  read  the  latest  fiction  he  wrote — (he  ceased 
to  produce  fiction  more  than  a  decade  before  his 
death)  and  you  appear  to  be  in  contact  with  the 
same  personality  in  the  substantial  of  story-making 
and  of  life-view\  The  only  notable  change  is  to  be 
found  in  the  final  group  of  three  stories,  "  One  of 
Our  Conquerors,"  "  Lord  Ormont  and  His  Aminta  " 
and  "  The  Amazing  Marriage."  The  note  of  social 
protest  is  louder  here,  the  revolt  against  conven- 
tions more  pronounced.  Otherwise,  the  author  of 
"  Feverel "  is  the  author  of  "  The  Amazing  Mar- 
riage." Much  has  occurred  in  the  Novel  during  the 
forty  j'ears  between  the  two  works :  realism  has  trav- 
eled to  an  extreme,  neo-idealism  come  by  way  of  re- 
action, romanticism  bloomed  again,  the  Novel  of  in- 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  281 

genious  construction,  the  Novel  of  humanitarian 
meaning,  the  Novel  of  thesis  and  problem  and  the 
Novel  that  foretells  the  future  like  an  astrologer,  all 
these  types  and  yet  others  have  been  practised ;  but 
Meredith  has  kept  tranquilly  on  the  tenor  of  his  large 
way,  uninfluenced,  except  as  he  has  expressed  all 
these  complexities  in  his  own  work.  He  is  in  literary 
evolution,  a  sport.  Critics  who  have  tried  to  show 
how  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries  have  in- 
fluenced liim,  have  come  out  lamely  from  the  attempt. 
He  has  been  sensitive  not  to  individual  writers,  but 
to  that  imponderable  yet  potent  thing,  the  time-ten- 
dency in  literature.  He  throws  back  to  much  in  the 
past,  while  in  the  van  of  modern  thought.  What,  to 
illustrate,  could  be  more  of  the  present  intellectually 
than  his  remarkable  sonnet-sequence,  "  Modern 
Love".?  And  are  not  his  women,  as  a  type,  the 
noblest  example  of  the  New  Woman  of  our  day — 
socially,  economically,  intellectually  emancipated, 
without  losing  their  distinctive  feminine  quality.'* 
And  3^et,  in  "  The  Shaving  of  Shagpat,"  an  early 
work,  we  go  back  to  the  Arabian  Nights  for  a  model. 
The  satiric  romance,  "  Harry  Richmond,"  often  re- 
minds of  the  leisured  episode  method  of  the  eighteenth 
century ;  and  while  reading  the  unique  "  Evan  Har- 
rington "  we  think  at  times  of  Aristophanes. 

Nor  is  much  light  thrown  on  Meredith's  path  in 
turning  to  his  personal  history.  Little  is  known  of 
this  author's  ancestry  and  education;  his  environ- 


28'2     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

iiK'iit  has  boon  so  siiuplo,  his  life  in  its  exteriors  so 
unoventful,  tluit  we  return  to  the  work  itself  with 
the  feeling  that  the  kej  to  the  secret  room  nuist  be 
here  if  anywhere.  It  is  known  that  he  was  educated 
in  youth  in  Germany,  which  is  interesting  in  reference 
to  the  problem  of  his  style.  And  there  is  more  to  be 
said  concerning  his  parentage  than  the  smug  pro- 
priety of  print  has  revealed  while  he  lived.  We 
know,  too,  that  his  marriage  with  the  daughter  of 
Thomas  Love  Peacock  proved  unhappy,  and  that  for 
many  years  he  has  resided,  almost  a  recluse,  with  his 
daughter,  in  the  idyllic  retirement  of  Surrey.  The 
privacy  of  Boxhill  has  been  respected ;  next  to  never 
has  Meredith  spoken  in  any  public  way  and  seldom 
visited  London.  When  he  was,  at  Tennyson's  death, 
made  the  President  of  the  British  Society  of  Authors, 
the  honor  sought  the  man.  The  rest  is  silence; 
what  has  appeared  since  his  death  has  been  of  too 
conflicting  a  nature  for  credence.  We  await  a  trust- 
worthy biography. 

The  appeal  then  must  be  to  the  books  themselves. 
Exclusive  of  short  story,  sketch  and  tale,  they  in- 
clude a  dozen  novels  of  generous  girth — for  Meredith 
is  old-fashioned  in  his  demand  for  elbow-room. 
They  are  preeminently  novels  of  character  and  more 
than  any  novelist  of  the  day  the  view  of  the  world 
embodied  in  them  is  that  of  the  intellect.  This  does 
not  mean  that  they  are  wanting  in  emotional  force 
or  interest :  merely,  that  in  George  Meredith's  fiction 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  283 

men  and  women  live  the  life  of  thought  as  it  is  acted 
upon  by  practical  issues.  Character  seen  in  action  is 
always  his  prepossession ;  plot  is  naught  save  as  it 
exhibits  this.  The  souls  of  men  and  women  are  his 
quarry,  and  the  test  of  a  civilization  the  degree  in 
which  it  has  developed  the  mind  for  an  enlightened 
control  over  the  emotions  and  the  bodily  appetites. 
Neither  does  this  mean,  as  with  Henry  James,  the 
disappearance  of  plot:  a  healthy  objectivity  of  narra- 
tive framework  is  preserved;  if  anything  the  earlier 
books — "  Feverel,"  "  Evan  Harrington,"  "  Rhoda 
Fleming  "  and  the  duo  "  Sandra  Belloni  "  and  "  Vit- 
toria  " — have  more  of  story  interest  than  the  later 
novels.  Meredith  has  never  feared  the  use  of  the 
episode,  in  this  suggesting  the  older  methods  of 
Fielding  and  Smollett.  Yet  the  episodic  in  his  hands 
has  ever  its  use  for  psychologic  envisagement. 
Love,  too,  plays  a  large  role  in  his  fiction ;  indeed, 
in  the  wider  platonic  sense,  it  is  constantly  present, 
although  he  is  the  last  man  to  be  called  a  writer  of 
love-stories.  And  no  man  has  permitted  himself 
greater  freedom  in  stepping  outside  the  story  in 
order  to  explain  his  meaning,  comment  upon  char- 
acter and  scene,  rhapsodize  upon  Life,  or  directly 
harangue  the  reader.  And  this  broad  marginal 
reservation  of  space,  however  much  it  is  deplored  in 
viewing  his  work  as  novel-making,  adds  a  peculiar 
tonic  and  is  a  characteristic  we  could  ill  spare.  It 
brings  us  back  to  the  feeling  that  he  is  a  great  man 


284    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

using  the  fiction  form  for  purposes  broader  than 
tliat  of  tellin<j  a  storj. 

Because  of  this  ample  personal  testimony  in  his 
books  it  should  be  easy  to  state  his  Lebensanschauung, 
unless  the  opacity  of  his  manner  blocks  the  way  or 
he  indulges  in  self-contradiction  in  the  manner  of  a 
Nietzsche.  Such  is  not  the  case.  What  is  the 
philosophy  unfolded  in  his  representative  books? 

It  will  be  convenient  to  choose  a  few  of  those 
typical  for  illustration.  The  essence  of  Meredith  is 
to  be  discovered  in  such  works  as  "  The  Ordeal  of 
Richard  Feverel,"  "  Evan  Harrington,"  "  Harry 
Richmond,"  "  The  Egoist,"  "  Diana  of  the  Cross- 
ways."  If  you  know  these,  you  understand  him. 
"  Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta  "  might  well  be  added 
because  of  its  teaching;  but  the  others  will  serve, 
with  the  understanding  that  so  many-sided  a  writer 
has  in  other  works  given  further  noble  proof  of  his 
powers.  If  I  allowed  personal  preference  to  be  my 
sole  guide,  "  Rhoda  Fleming  "  would  be  prominent 
in  the  list ;  and  many  place  "  Beauchamp's  Career  " 
high,  if  not  first  among  his  works ; — a  novel  teeming 
with  his  views,  particularly  valuable  for  its  treatment 
of  English  politics  and  certainly  containing  some  of 
his  most  striking  characterization,  in  particular,  one 
of  his  noblest  women.  Still,  those  named  will  fairly 
reflect  the  novelist  and  speak  for  all. 

"  Richard  Feverel,"  which  had  been  preceded  by  a 
book  of  poems,  the  fantasia  "  The  Shaving  of  Shag- 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  285 

pat  "  and  an  historical  novelette  "  Farina,"  was  the 
first  book  that  announced  the  arrival  of  a  great  nov- 
elist. It  is  at  once  a  romance  of  the  modern  type, 
a  love-story  and  a  problem  book ;  the  tri-statement 
makes  it  Meredithian.  It  deals  with  the  tragic  union 
of  Richard  and  Lucy,  in  a  setting  that  shifts  from 
sheer  idyllic,  through  worldly  and  realistic  to  a 
culmination  of  dramatic  grief.  It  contains,  in 
measure  heaped  up  and  running  over,  the  poetry,  the 
comedy  and  the  philosophy,  the  sense  of  Life's  riddle, 
for  which  the  author  is  renowned.  But  its  intellec- 
tual appeal  of  theme — aside  from  the  incidental  wis- 
dom that  stars  its  pages — is  found  in  the  study  of 
the  problem  of  education.  Richard's  father  would 
shape  his  career  according  to  a  preconceived  idea 
based  on  parental  love  and  guided  by  an  anxious, 
fussy  consulting  of  the  oracles.  The  attempt  to 
stretch  the  son  upon  a  pedagogic  procustean  bed 
fails  disastrously,  wrecking  his  own  happiness  and 
that  of  his  sweet  girl-wife.  Love  is  stronger  than 
aught  else  and  we  are  offered  the  spectacle  of  ruined 
lives  hovered  over  by  the  best  intentions.  The  novel 
is  an  illustration  of  the  author's  general  teaching  that 
a  human  being  must  have  reasonable  liberty  of  action 
for  self-development.  The  heart  must  be  allowed 
fair-play,  though  its  guidance  by  the  intellect  is  de- 
sirable. 

It  has  been   objected   that  this   moving  romance 
ends  in  unnecessary  tragedy;  that  the  catastrophe 


286    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

is  not  iiiovitiiblc.  But  it  n\:iy  be  doubted  if  the 
mistake  of  Sir  Austin  Fevcrel  could  be  so  clearlj  in- 
dicated bad  not  the  chance  bullet  of  the  duel 
killed  the  young  wife  when  reconciliation  with  her 
husband  appeared  probable.  But  a  book  so  vital 
in  spirit,  with  such  lyric  interludes,  lofty  heights 
of  wisdom,  homeric  humor,  dramatic  moments  and 
profound  emotions,  can  well  afford  lapses  from  per- 
fect form,  awkwardnesses  of  art.  There  arc  places 
where  philosophy  checks  movement  or  manner  ob- 
scures thought ;  but  one  overlooks  all  such,  remember- 
ing Richard  and  Lucy  meeting  by  the  river;  Rich- 
ard's lonesome  night  walk  when  he  learns  he  is  a 
father;  the  marvelous  parting  from  Bella  Mount; 
father  and  son  confronted  with  Richard's  separation 
from  the  girl-wife ;  the  final  piteous  passing  of  Lucy. 
These  are  among  the  great  moments  of  English 
fiction. 

One  gets  a  sense  of  Meredith's  resources  of  breadth 
and  variety  next  in  taking  up  "  Evan  Harrington." 
Here  is  a  satiric  character  sketch  where  before  was 
romance ;  for  broad  comedy  in  the  older  and  larger 
sense  it  has  no  peer  among  modem  novels.  The 
purpose  is  plain :  to  show  the  evolution  of  a  young 
middle-class  Englishman,  a  tailor's  son,  through 
worldly  experience  with  polite  society  into  true 
democracy.  After  the  disillusionment  of  "  high  life," 
after  much  yeasty  juvenile  foolishness  and  false 
ideals,  Evan  comes  back  to  his  father's  shop  with 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  287 

his  lesson  learned:  it  is  possible  (in  modern  England) 
to  be  both  tailor  and  gentleman. 

In  placing  this  picture  before  the  spectator,  an 
incomparable  view  of  genteel  society  with  contrasted 
touches  of  low  life  is  offered.  For  pure  comedy  that 
is  of  the  midriff  as  well  as  of  the  brain,  the  inn  scene 
with  the  astonishing  Raikes  as  central  figure  is  un- 
surpassed in  all  INIeredith,  and  only  Dickens  has  done 
the  like.  And  to  correspond  in  the  fashionable  world, 
there  is  Harrington's  sister,  the  Countess  de  Saldar, 
who  is  only  second  to  Becky  Sharp  for  saliency  and 
delight.  Some  find  these  comic  figures  overdrawn, 
even  impossible;  but  they  stand  the  test  applied  to 
Dickens:  they  abide  in  affectionate  memory,  vivid 
evocations  made  for  our  lasting  joy.  As  with 
*'Feverel,"  the  book  is  a  piece  of  life  first,  a  lesson 
second;  but  the  underlying  thesis  is  present,  not  to 
the  injury  of  one  who  reads  for  story's  sake. 

An  extraordinary  further  example  of  resourceful- 
ness, with  a  complete  change  of  key,  is  "  The  Ad- 
ventures of  Harry  Richmond."  The  ostensible  busi- 
ness of  the  book  is  to  depict  the  growth  from  boyhood 
to  manhood  and  through  sundry  experiences  of  love, 
with  the  resulting  effect  upon  his  character,  of  the 
young  man  whose  name  gives  it  title.  It  may  be 
noted  that  a  favorite  task  with  Meredith  is  this,  to 
trace  the  development  of  a  personality  from  imma- 
turity to  a  maturity  gained  by  the  hard  knocks  of  the 
master-educator.  Love.     But  the  figure  really  dom- 


i288    iMASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

iiiiuit  is  not  Harry  nor  any  one  of  liis  sweethearts, 
but  that  of  his  father,  Koy  Uichmond.  I  must  be- 
lieve that  English  fiction  offers  nothing  more  original 
than  he.  He  is  an  indescribable  compound  of  bril- 
liant swashbuckler,  splendid  gentleman  and  winning 
Goodheart.  Barry  Lyndon,  Tarascon,  Don  Quixote 
and  Septimus  go  into  his  making — and  yet  he  is 
not  explained ; — an  absolute  original.  The  scene 
where,  in  a  German  park  on  an  occasion  of  great 
pomp,  he  impersonates  the  statue  of  a  Prince,  is  one 
of  the  author's  triumphs — never  less  delightful  at  a 
re-reading. 

But  has  this  amazing  creation  a  meaning,  or  is 
Roy  merely  one  of  the  results  of  the  sportive  play 
of  a  man  of  genius.'*  He  is  something  more,  we  feel, 
when,  at  the  end  of  the  romance,  he  gives  his  life  for 
the  woman  who  has  so  faithfully  loved  him  and  be- 
lieved in  his  royal  pretensions.  He  perishes  in  a  fire, 
because  in  saving  her  he  would  not  save  himself.  It 
is  as  if  the  author  said :  "  Behold,  a  man  by  nature 
histrionic  and  Bohemian,  and  do  not  make  the  mis- 
take to  think  him  incapable  of  nobility.  Romantic 
in  his  faults,  so  too  he  is  romantic  in  his  virtues." 
And  back  of  this  kindly  treatment  of  the  lovable 
rascal  (who  was  so  ideal  a  father  to  the  little  Rich- 
mond!) does  there  not  lurk  the  thouglit  that  the 
pseudo-romantic  attitude  toward  Life  is  full  of  dan- 
ger— in  truth,  out  of  the  question  in  modern  society.'' 

"  The  Egoist  "  has  long  been  a  test  volume  with 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  289 

Meredithians.  If  you  like  it  you  are  of  the  cult;  if 
not,  merely  an  amateur.  It  is  inevitable  to  quote 
Stevenson  who,  when  he  had  read  it  several  times, 
declared  that  at  the  sixth  reading  he  would  begin  to 
realize  its  greatness.  Stevenson  was  a  doughty 
admirer  of  Meredith,  finding  the  elder  "  the  only 
man  of  genius  of  my  acquaintance,"  and  regarding 
"  Rhoda  Fleming "  as  a  book  to  send  one  back  to 
Shakspere. 

That  "  The  Egoist  "  is  typical — in  a  sense,  most 
typical  of  the  fictions, — is  very  true.  That,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  Meredith's  best  novel  may  be  boldly 
denied,  since  it  is  hardly  a  novel  at  all.  It  is  a  wonder- 
ful analytic  study  of  the  core  of  self  that  is  in  human- 
ity. Willoughby,  incarnation  of  a  self-centeredness 
glossed  over  to  others  and  to  himself  by  fine  gentle- 
man manners  and  instincts,  is  revealed  stroke  after 
stroke  until,  in  the  supreme  test  of  his  alliance  with 
Clara  Middleton,  he  is  flayed  alive  for  the  reader's 
benefit.  In  this  power  of  exposure,  by  the  subtlest, 
most  unrelenting  analysis,  of  the  very  penetralia 
of  the  human  soul  it  has  no  counterpart ;  beside  it, 
most  of  the  psychology  of  fiction  seems  child's  play. 
And  the  ti'uth  of  it  is  overwhelming.  No  wonder 
Stevenson  speaks  of  its  "  serviceable  exposure  of 
myself."  Every  honest  man  who  reads  it,  winces 
at  its  infallible  touching  of  a  moral  sore-spot.  The 
inescapable  ego  in  us  all  was  never  before  portrayed 
by  such  a  master. 


290    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

But  because  it  is  a  study  tliat  lacks  the  breadth, 
variety,  movement  and  objectivity  of  the  Novel 
proper,  "  The  Egoist "  is  for  the  confirmed  Meredith 
lover,  not  for  the  bcniniier:  to  take  it  first  is  per- 
chance to  (i;o  no  further.  Readers  have  been  lost  to 
him  by  this  course.  The  immense  f^iun  in  depth  and 
delicacy  ac(juired  b}'^  English  fiction  since  Richardson 
is  well  illustrated  by  a  comparison  of  the  latter's 
"  Sir  Charles  Grandison "  with  Meredith's  "  Tlie 
Egoist."  One  is  a  portrait  for  the  time,  the  other 
for  all  time.  Both,  superficially  viewed,  are  the  same 
type :  a  male  paragon  before  whom  a  bevy  of  women 
burn  incense.  But  O  the  difference !  Grandison  is 
serious  to  his  author,  Avhile  Meredith,  in  skinning 
Willoughby  alive  like  another  Marsyas,  is  once  and 
for  all  making  the  worship  of  the  ego  hateful. 

It  is  interesting  that  "  Diana  of  the  Crossways  " 
was  the  book  first  to  attract  American  readers.  It 
has  some  of  the  author's  eccentricities  at  their  worst. 
But  it  was  in  one  respect  an  excellent  choice:  the 
heroine  is  thoroughly  representative  of  the  author 
and  of  the  age;  possibly  this  country  is  sympathetic 
to  her  for  the  reason  that  she  seems  indigenous. 
Diana  furnishes  a  text  for  a  dissertation  on  Mere- 
dith's limning  of  the  sex,  and  of  his  conception  of 
the  mental  relation  of  the  sexes.  She  is  a  modern 
w^oman,  not  so  much  that  she  is  superior  in  good- 
ness to  the  ideal  of  woman  established  in  the  mid- 
Victorian  period  bj^  Thackeray  and  Dickens,  as  that 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  291 

she  is  bigger  and  broader.  She  is  the  result  of  the 
process  of  social  readjustment.  Her  stor}'  is  that 
of  a  woman  soul  experiencing  a  succession  of  unions 
and  through  them  learning  the  higher  love.  First, 
the  mariage  de  convenance  of  an  unawakened  girl; 
then,  a  marriage  wherein  admiration,  ambition  and 
flattered  pride  play  their  parts ;  finally,  the  marriage 
with  Redbourne,  a  union  based  on  tried  friendship, 
comradeship,  respect,  warming  into  passion  that,  like 
the  sudden  up-leap  of  flame  on  the  altar,  lifts  the 
spirit  onto  ideal  heights.  Diana  is  an  imperfect, 
sinning,  aspiring,  splendid  creature.  And  in  the 
narrative  that  surrounds  her,  we  get  Meredith's 
theory  of  the  place  of  intellect  in  woman,  and  in  the 
development  of  society.  He  has  an  intense  convic- 
tion that  the  human  mind  should  be  so  trained  that 
woman  can  never  fall  back  upon  so-called  instinct ;  he 
ruthlessly  attacks  her  "  intuition,"  so  often  lauded 
and  made  to  cover  a  multitude  of  sins.  When  he 
remarks  that  she  will  be  the  last  thing:  to  be  civilized 
by  man,  the  satire  is  directed  against  man  rather 
than  against  woman  herself,  since  it  is  man  who 
desires  to  keep  her  a  creature  of  the  so-called  intui- 
tions. A  might}'  champion  of  the  sex,  he  never  tires 
telling  it  that  intellectual  training  is  the  sure  way  to 
all  the  equalities.  This  conviction  makes  him  a  stal- 
wart enemy  of  sentimentalism,  which  is  so  fiercely 
satirized  in  "  Sandra  Bclloni  "  in  the  persons  of  the 
Pole  family.    His  works  abound  in  passages  in  which 


\>92     MASTERS  Ol-    THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

tliis  view  is  (lisplavoil,  flashed  before  the  reader  in 
diamond-hke  epigram  and  a^jhorisni.  Not  tliat  he 
despises  the  emotions :  those  who  know  liini  thor- 
oughly will  recognize  the  absurdity  of  such  a  charge. 
Only  he  insists  that  they  be  regulated  and  used  aright 
by  the  master,  brain.  The  mishaps  of  his  women  come 
usually  from  the  haphazard  abeyance  of  feeling  or 
from  an  unthinking  bowing  down  to  the  arbitrary 
dictations  of  society.  Tliis  insistence  upon  the  appli- 
cation of  reason  (the  reasoning  process  dictated  by 
an  age  of  science)  to  social  situations,  has  led  this 
writer  to  advise  the  setting  aside  of  the  marriage 
bond  in  certain  circumstances.  In  both  "  Lord 
Ormont  and  his  Aminta  "  and  "  One  of  our  Con- 
querors "  he  advocates  a  greater  freedom  in  this 
relation,  to  anticipate  what  time  may  bring  to  pass. 
It  is  enough  here  to  say  that  this  extreme  view  does 
not  represent  Meredith's  best  fiction  nor  his  most 
fruitful  period  of  production. 

Perhaps  the  most  original  thing  about  Meredith 
as  a  novelist  is  the  daring  way  in  which  he  has  made 
an  alliance  between  romance  and  the  intellect  which 
was  supposed,  in  an  older  conception,  to  be  its  arch- 
enemy. He  gives  to  Romance,  that  creature  of  the 
emotions,  the  corrective  and  tonic  of  the  intellect. 
"  To  preserv'e  Romance,"  he  declares,  "  we  must  be 
inside  the  heads  of  our  people  as  well  as  the  hearts 
in  days  of  a  growing  activity  of  the  head." 

Let  us  say  once  again  that  Romance  mean?  a  cer- 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  293 

tain  use  of  material  as  the  result  of  an  attitude 
toward  Life;  this  attitude  may  be  temporary,  a 
mood ;  or  steady,  a  conviction.  It  is  the  latter  with 
George  Meredith;  and  be  it  understood,  his  material 
is  always  realistic,  it  is  his  interpretation  that  is 
superbly  idealistic.  The  occasional  crabbedness  of 
his  manner  and  his  fiery  admiration  for  Italy  are 
not  the  only  points  in  which  he  reminds  one  of  Brown- 
ing. He  is  one  with  him  in  his  belief  in  soul,  his 
conception  of  life  is  an  arena  for  its  trying-out; 
one  with  liim  also  in  the  robust  acceptance  of  earth 
and  earth's  worth,  evil  and  all,  for  enjoyment  and  as 
salutary  experience.  This  is  no  fanciful  parallel 
between  Meredith  and  a  man  who  has  been  called 
(with  their  peculiarities  of  style  in  mind)  the  Mere- 
dith of  Poetry,  as  Meredith  has  been  called  the 
Browning  of  Prose. 

Thus,  back  of  whatever  may  be  the  external  story 
— the  Italian  struggle  for  unity  in  "  Vittoria,"  Eng- 
lish radicalism  in  "  Beauchamp's  Career,"  a  seduction 
melodrama  in  "  Rhoda  Fleming  " — there  is  always 
with  Meredith  a  steady  interpretation  of  life,  a  prin- 
ciple of  belief.  It  is  his  crowning  distinction  that  he 
can  make  an  intellectual  appeal  quite  aside  from  the 
particular  story  he  is  telling; — and  it  is  also  appar- 
ent that  this  is  his  most  vulnerable  point  as  novelist. 
We  get  more  from  him  just  because  he  shoots  beyond 
the  fiction  target.  He  is  that  rare  thing  in  English 
novel-making,  a  notable  thinker.     Of  all  nineteenth 


':<)t    masti:hs  or  the  English  novel 

c't'iiliiry  novelists  1k>  loads  lor  intelkc'tiuil  stiiimla- 
tion.  Witli  fifty  faults  of  manner  and  matter,  irri- 
tating, even  outrageous  in  liis  eccentricities,  he  can 
at  his  best  startle  with  a  brilliance  that  is  alone  of 
its  kind.  It  is  because  wc  hail  him  as  philosopher, 
wit  and  poet  that  he  fails  comparatively  as  artist. 
He  shows  throughout  his  work  a  sublime  carelessness 
of  workmanship  on  the  structural  side  of  his  craft; 
but  in  those  essentials,  dialogue,  character  and  scene, 
he  rises  to  the  peaks  of  his  profession. 

Probably  more  readers  are  offended  by  his  manner- 
isms of  style  than  by  any  other  defect;  and  they 
are  undeniable.  The  opening  chapter  of  "  Diana  " 
is  a  hard  thing  to  get  by ;  the  same  may  be  said  of 
the  similar  chapter  in  "  Bcauchamp's  Career."  In 
"  One  of  our  Conquerors,"  early  and  late,  the  manner 
is  such  as  to  lose  for  him  even  tried  adherents.  Is 
the  trouble  one  of  thought  or  expression.''  And  is  it 
honest  or  an  affectation.''  Meredith  in  some  books — 
and  in  all  books  more  or  less — adopts  a  strangely  in- 
direct, over-elaborated,  far-fetched  and  fantastic  style, 
which  those  who  love  him  are  fain  to  deplore.  The 
author's  learning  gets  in  his  way  and  leads  him  into 
recondite  allusions ;  besides  this,  he  has  that  quality 
of  mind  which  is  stimulated  into  finding  analogies 
on  every  side,  so  that  image  is  piled  on  image  and 
side-paths  of  thought  open  up  in  the  heat  of  this 
mental  activity.  Part  of  the  difficulty  arises  from 
surplusage    of    imagination.     Sometimes    it    is    used 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  295 

in  the  service  of  comment  (often  satirical)  ;  again  in 
a  kind  of  Greek  chorus  to  the  drama,  greatly  to  its 
injury;  or  in  pure  description,  where  it  is  hardly  less 
offensive.  Thus  in  "The  Egoist"  we  read:  "  Wil- 
loughby  shadowed  a  deep  droop  on  the  bend  of  his 
neck  before  Clara,"  and  reflection  shows  that  all  this 
absurdly  acrobatic  phrase  means  is  that  the  hero 
bowed  to  the  lady.  An  utterly  simple  occurrence 
and  thus  described!  It  is  all  the  more  strange  and 
aggravating  in  that  it  comes  from  a  man  who  on 
hundreds  of  occasions  writes  English  as  pungent, 
sonorous  and  sweet  as  any  writer  in  the  history  of 
the  native  literature.  This  is  true  both  of  dialogue 
and  narrative.  He  is  the  most  quotable  of  authors; 
his  Pilgrim's  Scrip  is  stuff'ed  full  of  precious  sayings, 
expressing  many  moods  of  emotion  and  interpreting 
the  world  under  its  varied  aspects  of  romance,  beauty, 
wit  and  drama.  "  Strength  is  the  brute  form  of 
truth."  There  is  a  French  conciseness  in  such  a 
sentence  and  immense  mental  suggestiveness.  Both 
his  scenic  and  character  phrasing  are  memorable,  as 
where  the  dyspeptic  philosopher  in  "  Feverel  "  is  de- 
scribed after  dinner  as  "  languidly  twinkling  sto- 
machic contentment."  And  what  a  scene  is  that  where 
Master  Gammon  replies  to  Mrs.  Sumfit's  anxious 
query  concerning  his  lingering  at  table  with  appetite 
apparently  unappeasable : 

"  '  When  do  you  think  you  will  have  done.  Master 
Gammon .'' ' 


^'j;(J     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

"  '  AN'liL'n  I  fi'cls  inv  buttons,  ^Li'am.'  " 

Or  hoar  .lolm  Tlinishcr  in  "Harry  Richmond" 
dilate  on  Language: 

" '  Tliere's  cockne}',  and  there's  country,  and 
there's  schooL  IMix  tlie  throe,  strain  and  throw  away 
the  sediment.      Now  jon's   my  view.'  " 

Has  any  philologist  said  all  that  could  be  said, 
so  succinctly?  His  lyric  outbursts  in  the  face  of 
Nature  or  better  3'et,  where  as  in  the  moonlight 
meeting  of  the  lovers  at  Wilming  Weir  in  "  Sandra 
Bclloni,"  nature  is  interspersed  with  human  passion 
in  a  glorious  union  of  music,  picture  and  impassioned 
sentiment, — these  await  the  pleasure  of  the  enthralled 
seeker  in  every  book.  To  encounter  such  passages 
(perhaps  in  a  mood  of  protest  over  some  almost 
insufferable  defect)  is  to  find  the  reward  rich  indeed. 

Let  the  cause  of  obscurity  be  what  it  may,  we  need 
not  doubt  that  with  Meredith  style  is  the  man,  a 
perfectly  honest  way  of  expressing  his  personality. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  his  unconventional  education 
and  the  early  influence  of  German  upon  him,  may 
come  into  the  consideration.  But  in  the  main  his 
peculiarity   is   congenital. 

Meredith  lacked  self-criticism  as  a  writer.  But 
it  is  quite  inaccurate  to  speak  of  obscure  thought; 
it  is  language,  the  medium,  which  makes  the  trouble 
when  there  is  any.  His  thought,  allowing  for  the 
fantasticality  of  his  humor  in  certain  moods,  is  never 
muddled  or  unorganized:  it  is  sane,  consistent  and 


HARDY  AND  MEREDITH  297 

worthy  of  attention.  To  say  this,  is  still  to  regret 
the  stylistic  vagaries. 

One  other  defect  must  be  mentioned :  the  characters 
talk  like  Meredith,  instead  of  in  their  own  persons. 
This  is  not  true  uniformly,  of  course,  but  it  does  mar 
the  truth  of  his  presentation.  Young  girls  show  wit 
and  wisdom  quite  out  of  keeping ;  those  in  humble  life 
— a  bargeman,  perhaps,  or  a  prize-fighter — speak 
as  they  would  not  in  reality.  Illusion  is  by  so  much 
disturbed.  It  would  appear  in  such  cases  that  the 
thinker  temporarily  dominated  the  creative  artist. 

When  all  is  said,  pro  and  con,  there  remains  a 
towering  personality ;  a  writer  of  unique  quality ;  a 
man  so  stimulating  and  surprising  as  he  is,  that  we 
almost  prefer  him  to  the  perfect  artist  he  never  could 
be.  No  English  maker  of  novels  can  give  us  a  fuller 
sense  of  life,  a  keener  realization  of  the  dignity  of 
man.  It  is  natural  to  wish  for  more  than  we  have — 
to  desire  that  Meredith  had  possessed  the  power 
of  complete  control  of  his  material  and  himself,  had 
revised  his  work  to  better  advantage.  But  perhaps 
it  is  more  commonsensible  to  be  thankful  for  him  as 
he  is. 

As  to  influence,  it  would  seem  modest  to  assert 
that  Meredith  is  as  bracingly  wholesome  morally  as 
he  is  intellectually  stimulating.  In  a  private  letter  to 
a  friend  who  was  praising  his  finest  book,  he  whim- 
sically mourns  the  fact  that  he  must  write  for  a 
living  and  hence  feel  like  disowning  so  many  of  his 


•j:ks    masters  of  tiik  f.nglish  novel 

I'liildron  wlicn  in  colil  blood  he  scrutinizes  liis  off- 
spring. Thv  letter  in  Its  entirety  (it  Is  unpublislicd) 
is  proof,  were  any  needed,  that  he  had  a  liigh  artistic 
ideal  which  kept  him  nobly  dissatisfied  with  his  en- 
deavor. There  is  in  him  neither  pose  nor  com- 
placent self-satisfaction.  To  an  American,  whom 
lie  was  bidding  good-by  at  his  own  gate,  he  said: 
"  If  I  had  my  books  lo  do  over  again,  I  should  try 
harder  to  make  sure  their  influence  was  good."  His 
aims,  ethical  and  artistic,  throughout  his  work,  can 
be  relied  upon  as  high  and  noble.  His  faults  are  as 
honest  as  he  himself,  the  inherent  defects  of  his  genius. 
No  writer  of  our  day  stands  more  sturdily  for  the 
idea  that,  whereas  art  is  precious,  personality  is  more 
precious  still ;  without  which  art  is  a  tinkling  cymbal 
and  with  which  even  a  defective  art  can  conquer 
Time,  like  a  garment  not  all-seemly,  that  yet  cannot 
hide  an  heroic  figure. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

STEVENSON 

It  Is  too  early  yet  to  be  sure  that  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  will  make  a  more  cogent  appeal  for 
a  place  in  English  letters  as  a  writer  of  fiction  than 
as  an  essayist.  But  had  he  never  written  essays 
likely  to  rank  him  with  the  few  masters  of  that 
delightful  fireside  form,  he  would  still  have  an  in- 
disputable claim  as  novelist.  The  claim  in  fact  is 
a  double  one ;  it  is  founded,  first,  on  his  art  and  power 
as  a  maker  of  romance,  but  also  upon  his  historical 
service  to  English  fiction,  as  the  man  most  instru- 
mental in  purifying  the  muddy  current  of  realism 
in  the  late  nineteenth  century  by  a  wholesome  in- 
fusion,— the  romantic  view  of  life.  It  is  already 
easier  to  estimate  his  importance  and  get  the  sig- 
nificance of  his  work  than  it  was  when  he  died  in 
1894 — stricken  down  on  the  piazza  of  his  house  at 
Vailima,  a  Scotchman  doomed  to  fall  in  a  far-away, 
alien  place. 

We  are  better  able  now  to  separate  that  personal 
charm  felt  from  direct  contact  with  the  man,  which 
almost  hypnotized  those  who  knew  him,  from  the 
more  abiding  charm   which   is   in   his   writings:   the 

299 


:H)0     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

revelation  of  a  cluiracter  tlic  most  attractive  of  his 
generation.  Karcly,  if  ever  before,  have  the  qualities 
of  artistry  and  fraternal  fellowship  been  united  in 
a  man  of  letters  to  such  a  degree;  most  often  they 
are  found  apart,  the  gods  choosing  to  award  their 
favors  less  lavishly. 

Because  of  this  union  of  art  and  life,  Stevenson's 
romances  killed  two  birds  with  one  stone;  boj's  loved 
his  adventuresomeness,  the  wholesome  sensationalism 
of  his  stories  with  something  doing  on  every  page, 
while  amateurs  of  art  responded  to  his  felicity  of 
phrase,  his  finished  technique,  the  exhibition  of  crafts- 
manship conquering  difficulty  and  danger.  Artist, 
lover  of  life,  insistent  truth-teller,  Calvinist,  Bohe- 
mian, believer  in  joy,  all  these  cohabit  in  his  books. 
In  early  masterpieces  like  "  Treasure  Island  "  and 
"The  Wrecker"  it  is  the  lover  of  life  who  conducts 
us,  telling  the  story   for  story's  sake: 

"My   mistress   still   the   open   road 
And  the  bright  eyes  of  danger" 

Such  is  the  goddess  that  beckons  on.  The  creed 
implicit  in  such  work  deems  that  life  is  stirring  and 
worth  while,  and  that  it  is  a  weakness  to  repine  and 
waste  time,  to  be  too  subjective  when  so  much  on 
earth  is  objectively  alluring.  This  is  only  a  part  of 
Stevenson,  of  course,  but  it  was  that  phase  of  him 
vastly  liked  of  the  public  and  doubtless  doing  most 
to  give  him  vogue. 


STEVENSON  301 

But  in  later  work  like  "  Dr.  Jekjll  and  Mr.  Hyde  " 
we  get  quite  another  thing:  the  skilled  story-maker 
is  still  giving  us  thrilling  fiction,  to  be  sure,  but  here 
it  is  the  Scotchman  of  acute  conscience,  writing  a 
spiritual  allegory  with  the  healthy  instinct  which 
insists  that  the  lesson  shall  be  dramatized.  So,  too, 
in  a  late  fiction  like  "  Ebb  Tide,"  apparently  as 
picaresque  and  harum-scarum  as  "  Treasure  Island,'* 
it  is  nevertheless  the  moralist  who  is  at  work  beneath' 
the  brilliantly  picturesque  surface  of  the  narrative, 
contrasting  types  subtly,  showing  the  gradings  in 
moral  disintegration.  In  the  past-mastership  of  the 
finest  Scotch  novels,  "  Kidnapped "  and  its  sequel 
"David  Balfour,"  "The  Master  oif  Ballantrae " 
and  the  beautiful  torso,  "  Weir  of  Hermiston,"  we 
get  the  psychologic  romance,  which  means  a  shift 
of  interest ; — character  comes  first,  story  is  secondary 
to  it.  Here  is  the  maturest  Stevenson,  the  fiction 
most  expressive  of  his  genius,  and  naturally  the  in- 
spiration is  native,  he  looks  back,  as  he  so  often  did 
in  his  poetry,  to  the  distant  gray  little  island  which 
was  Motherland  to  him,  home  of  his  youth  and  of 
his  kindred,  the  earth  where  he  was  fain  to  lie  when 
his  time  came.  Stevenson,  to  the  end,  could  always 
return  to  sheer  story,  as  in  "  St.  Ives,"  but  in  doing 
so,  is  a  little  below  his  best:  that  kind  did  not  call 
on  his  complete  powers:  in  such  fiction  deep  did  not 
answer  unto  deep. 

In  1883,  when  "  Treasure  Island  "  appeared,  the 


;U)'2     iMASTKRS  OF  TIIK   KNGLJSII   NOVEL 

jniblic  was  giis])ing  for  the  oxygen  tliat  a  story  with 
outdoor  niovcinent  and  action  could  supply:  there 
was  enough  and  to  spare  of  invertebrate  subtleties, 
strained  nKtaj)hysics  and  coarse  naturalistic  studies. 
A  sublimated  dime  novel  like  "  Treasure  Island " 
came  at  the  psychologic  moment;  the  year  before 
"  The  New  Arabian  Nights  "  had  offered  the  same 
sort  of  pabulum,  but  had  been  practically^  overlooked. 
Readers  were  only  too  glad  to  turn  from  people  with 
a  past  to  people  of  the  past,  or  to  people  of  the 
present  whose  ways  were  ways  of  pleasantness.  Ste- 
venson substituted  a  lively,  normal  interest  in  life 
for  plotlessness  aiid  a  surfeit  of  the  flesh.  The  public 
rose  to  the  bait  as  the  trout  to  a  particularly  invit- 
ing fly.  Once  more  reverting  to  the  good  old  appeal 
of  Scott — incident,  action  and  derring-do — he  added 
the  attraction  of  his  personal  touch,  and  what  was  so 
gallantly  proferred  was  greedily  grasped. 

Although,  as  has  been  said,  Stevenson  passed  from 
the  primitive  romance  of  the  Shilling  Shocker  to 
the  romance  of  character,  his  interest  in  character 
study  was  keen  from  the  first:  the  most  plot-cunning 
and  external  of  his  yarns  have  that  illuminative  ex- 
posure of  human  beings — in  flashes  at  least — which 
mark  him  off  from  the  bluff,  robust  manner  of  a 
Dumas  and  lend  an  attraction  far  greater  than  that 
of  mere  tangle  of  events.  This  gets  fullest  ex- 
pression in  the  Scotch  romances. 

"  The  Master  of  Ballantrae,"  for  one  illustration ; 


STEVENSON  303 

the  interplay  of  motive  and  act  as  it  affects  a  group 
of  human  beings  is  so  conducted  that  plot  becomes 
a  mere  framework,  within  which  we  are  permitted  to 
see  a  typical  tragedy  of  kinship.  This  receives 
curious  corroboration  in  the  fact  that  when,  towards 
the  close  of  the  story,  the  scene  shifts  to  America 
and  the  main  motive — the  unfolding  of  the  fraternal 
fortunes  of  the  tragic  brothers,  is  made  minor  to  a 
series  of  gruesome  adventures  (however  entertaining 
and  well  done)  the  reader,  even  if  uncritical,  has 
an  uneasy  sense  of  disharmony:  and  rightly,  since 
the  strict  character  romance  has  changed  to  the 
romance  of  action. 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  finer  qualities  of  Ste- 
venson are  called  out  by  the  psychological  romance 
on  native  soil.  He  did  some  brilliant  and  engaging 
work  of  foreign  setting  and  motive.  "  The  Island 
Nights'  Entertainments  "  is  as  good  in  its  way  as 
the  earlier  "  New  Arabian  Nights  " — far  superior  to 
it,  indeed,  for  finesse  and  the  deft  command  of  ex- 
otic material.  Judged  as  art,  "  The  Bottle  Imp  " 
and  "  The  Beach  of  Falesa  "  are  among  the  triumphs 
of  ethnic  interpretation,  let  alone  their  more  external 
charms  of  story.  And  another  masterpiece  of  for- 
eign setting,  "  A  Lodging  for  The  Night,"  Is  further 
proof  of  Stevenson's  ability  to  use  other  than  Scotch 
motives  for  the  materials  of  his  art.  "  Ebb-Tide," 
again,  grim  as  it  is,  must  always  be  singled  out  as 
a  marvel  of  tone  and  proportion,  yet  seems  bom 


:UU     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

out  of  an  existence  utterly  removed  as  to  conditions 
and  incentives  from  the  land  of  his  birth.  But  when, 
iu  Ills  own  words : 

" 'J"ho  tri)}iii"s  vanish,  .iiul  iiieseenis  that  I, 
From   Halkcrsiilf,   from  loj)mo.st   Allermuir, 
Or  steep  Caerketton,  dreaming  gaze  again." 

then,  as  if  vitalized  by  mother-earth,  Stevenson  shows 
a  breadtli,  a  vigor,  a  racy  idiosyncrasy,  that  best 
justify  a  comparison  with  Scott.  It  means  a  quality 
that  is  easier  felt  than  expressed;  of  the  very  warp 
and  woof  of  his  work.  If  the  elder  novelist 
seems  greater  in  scope,  spontaneity  and  substance, 
the  younger  surpasses  him  in  the  elegancies  and 
niceties  of  his  art.  And  it  is  only  a  just  recognition 
of  the  difference  of  Time  as  well  as  of  personality 
to  say  that  the  psychology  of  Stevenson  is  far 
more  profound  and  searching.  Nor  may  it  be  denied 
that  Sir  Walter  nods,  that  there  are  flat,  uninter- 
esting stretches  in  his  heroic  panorama,  while  of 
Stevenson  at  the  worst,  we  may  confidently  assert 
that  he  is  never  tedious.  He  fails  in  the  comparison 
if  anywhere  in  largeness  of  personality,  not  in  the 
perfectness  of  the  art  of  his  fiction.  In  the  technical 
demands  of  his  profession  he  is  never  wanting.  He 
always  has  a  story  to  tell,  tells  it  with  the  skill 
which  means  constructive  development  and  a  sense 
of  situation ;  he  creates  characters  who  live,  interest 
and  do  not  easily  fade  from  memory:  he  has  ex- 
ceptional power  in  so  filling  in  backgrounds  as  to 


STEVENSON  305 

produce  the  illusion  of  atmosphere;  and  finally,  he 
has,  whether  in  dialogue  or  description,  a  wonder- 
fully supple  instrument  of  expression.  If  the  style 
of  his  essays  is  at  times  mannered,  the  charge  can 
not  be  made  against  his  representative  fiction: 
"  Prince  Otto "  stands  alone  in  this  respect,  and 
that  captivating,  comparatively  early  romance,  con- 
fessedly written  under  the  influence  of  Meredith,  is 
a  delicious  literary  experiment  rather  than  a  deeply- 
felt  piece  of  life.  Perhaps  the  central  gift  of  all 
is  that  for  character — is  it,  in  truth,  not  the  central 
gift  for  any  weaver  of  fiction?  So  we  thought  in 
studying  Dickens.  Stevenson's  creations  wear  the 
habit  of  life,  yet  with  more  than  life's  grace  of 
carriage ;  they  are  seen  picturesquely  without,  but 
also  psychologically  within.  In  a  marvelous  por- 
traj'^al  like  that  of  John  Silver  in  "  Treasure  Island  " 
the  result  is  a  composite  of  what  we  see  and  what 
we  shudderingly  guess :  eye  and  mind  are  satisfied 
alike.  Even  in  a  mere  sketch,  such  as  that  of 
the  blind  beggar  at  the  opening  of  the  same  romance, 
with  the  tap-tap  of  his  stick  to  announce  his  coming, 
we  get  a  remarkable  example  of  effect  secured  by  an 
economy  of  details ;  that  tap-tapping  gets  on  your 
nerves,  you  never  forget  it.  It  seems  like  the  mem- 
ory of  a  childhood  terror  on  the  novelist's  part. 
Throughout  his  fiction  this  chemic  union  of  fact 
and  the  higher  fact  that  is  of  the  imagination  marks 
his  work.      The  smell  of  the  heather  is  in  our  nostrils 


'M6    masters  of  the  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

as  we  wntch  Allan's  flight,  and  looking  on  at  the 
fight  in  the  round-house,  there  is  a  physical  impres- 
sion of  the  stuffiness  of  the  place;  you  smell  as  well 
as  see  it.  Or  for  quite  another  key,  take  the  night 
duel  in  "  The  Master  of  Ballantrae."  You  cannot 
think  of  it  without  feeling  the  bite  of  the  bleak  air; 
once  more  the  twinkle  of  the  candles  makes  the  scene 
flicker  before  you  ere  it  vanish  into  memory-land. 
Again,  how  you  know  that  sea-coast  site  in  the 
opening  of  "  The  Pavilion  on  the  Links  " — shiver 
at  the  "  sly  innuendoes  of  the  place  " !  Think  how 
mucli  the  map  in  "  Treasure  Island "  adds  to  the 
credibility  of  the  thing.  It  is  the  believableness  of 
Stevenson's  atmospheres  that  prepare  the  reader  for 
any  marvels  enacted  in  them.  Gross,  present-day, 
matter-of-fact  London  makes  Dr.  Jekyll  and  his 
worser  half  of  flesh-and-blood  credence.  Few  novel- 
ists of  any  race  have  beaten  this  wandering  Scot 
in  the  power  of  representing  character  and  envisag- 
ing it:  and  there  can  hardly  be  successful  character- 
ization without  this  allied  power  of  creating  atmos- 
phere. 

Nothing  is  falser  than  to  find  him  imitative  in 
his  representative  work.  There  may  be  a  suspicion 
of  made-to-order  journalism  in  "  The  Black  Arrow," 
and  the  exception  of  "  Prince  Otto,"  which  none  the 
less  we  love  for  its  gallant  spirit  and  smiling  grace, 
has  been  noted.  But  of  the  Scotch  romances  noth- 
ing farther  from  the  truth  could  be  said.    They  stand 


STEVENSON  307 

or  fall  by  themselves:  they  have  no  model — save 
that  of  sound  art  and  a  normal  conception  of  human 
life.  Rarely  does  this  man  fall  below  his  own  high 
level  or  fail  to  set  his  private  remarque  upon  his 
labor.  It  is  in  a  way  unfortunate  that  Stevenson, 
early  in  his  career,  so  frankly  confessed  to  prac- 
tising for  his  craft  by  the  use  of  the  best  models : 
it  has  led  to  the  silly  misinterpretation  which  sees 
in  all  his  literary  effort  nothing  but  the  skilful  echo. 
Such  judgments  remind  us  that  criticism,  which  is 
intended  to  be  a  picture  of  another,  is  in  reality  a 
picture  of  oneself.  In  his  lehrjahre  Stevenson 
"  slogged  at  his  trade,"  beyond  peradventure ;  but 
no  man  came  to  be  more  individually  and  independ- 
ently himself. 

It  has  been  spoken  against  him,  too,  that  he  could 
not  draw  women:  here  again  he  is  quoted  in  his 
own  despite  and  we  see  the  possible  disadvantage 
of  a  great  writer's  correspondence  being  given  to 
the  world — though  not  for  more  worlds  than  one 
would  we  miss  the  Letters.  It  is  quite  true  that  he 
is  chary  of  petticoats  in  his  earlier  work:  but  when 
he  reached  "  David  Balfour  "  he  drew  an  entrancing 
heroine ;  and  the  contrasted  types  of  young  girl 
and  middle-aged  woman  in  "  Weir  of  Hermiston  " 
offer  eloquent  testimonial  to  his  increasing  power  in 
depicting  the  Eternal  Feminine.  At  the  same  time, 
it  may  be  acknowledged  that  the  gallery  of  female 
portraits  is  not  like  Scott's  for  number  and  variety, 


SOS    MASTERS  OF  TUP:  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

nor  like  Th.u-krray''^  f<'i'  distinction  and  cliarm — 
thick-lnui^  with  u  ilcli^"htful  company  vvliosc  eyes 
laugh  level  with  our  own,  or,  above  us  on  the  wall, 
look  down  w  ith  a  starry  challenge  to  our  souls.  But 
those  whom  Stevenson  has  hung  there  arc  not  to  be 
coldly  recalled. 

Stevenson's  work  offers  itself  remarkably  as  a 
test  for  the  thouglit  that  all  worthily  modem  ro- 
manticism must  not  lack  in  reality,  in  true  observa- 
tion, for  success  in  its  most  daring  flights.  Gone 
forever  is  that  abuse  of  the  romantic  wliich  sub- 
stitutes effective  lying  for  the  vision  which  sees 
broadly  enough  to  find  beauty.  The  latter-day 
realist  will  be  found  in  the  end  to  have  permanently 
contributed  this,  a  welcome  legacy  to  our  time, 
after  its  excesses  and  absurdities  are  forgotten. 
Realism  has  taught  romanticism  to  tell  the  truth, 
if  it  would  succeed.  Stevenson  is  splendidly  real, 
he  loves  to  visualize  fact,  to  be  true  both  to  the 
appearances  of  things  and  the  thoughts  of  the  mind. 
He  is  aware  that  life  is  more  than  food — that  it 
is  a  subjective  state  quite  as  much  as  an  objective 
reality.  He  refers  to  himself  more  than  once,  half 
humorously,  as  a  fellow  whose  forte  lay  in  transcrib- 
ing what  was  before  him,  to  be  seen  and  felt,  tasted 
and  heard.  This  extremely  modern  denotement  was 
a  marked  feature  of  his  genius,  often  overlooked. 
He  had  a  desire  to  know  all  manner  of  men;  he 
had  the  noble  curiosity  of  Montaigne;  this  it  was, 


STEVENSON  309 

along  with  his  human  sympathy,  that  led  him 
to  rough  it  in  emigrant  voyages  and  railroad  trips 
across  the  plains.  It  was  this  characteristic,  unless 
I  err,  the  lack  of  which  in  "  Prince  Otto  "  gives  it 
a  certain  rococo  air:  he  was  consciously  fooling 
in  it,  and  felt  the  need  of  a  solidly  mundane  footing. 
Truth  to  human  nature  in  general,  and  that  lesser 
truth  which  means  accurate  photography — his  books 
give  us  both;  the  modern  novelist,  even  a  romancer 
like  Stevenson,  is  not  permitted  to  slight  a  landscape, 
an  idiom  nor  a  point  of  psychology :  this  one  is  never 
untrue  to  the  trust.  There  is  in  the  very  nature 
of  his  language  a  proof  of  his  strong  hunger  for 
the  actual,  the  verifiable.  No  man  of  his  genera- 
tion has  quite  such  a  grip  on  the  vernacular:  his 
speech  rejoices  to  disport  itself  in  root  flavors;  the 
only  younger  writer  who  equals  him  in  this  relish  for 
reality  of  expression  is  Kipling.  Further  back  it 
reminds  of  Defoe  or  Swift,  at  their  best.  Steven- 
son cannot  abide  the  stock  phrases  with  which  most 
of  us  make  shift  to  express  our  thoughts  instead  of 
using  first-hand  effects.  There  is,  with  all  its  music 
and  suavity,  something  of  the  masculinity  of  the 
Old  English  in  the  following  brief  descriptive  pas- 
sage from  "  Ebb-Tide  " : 

*'  There  was  little  or  no  morning  bank.  A  brighten- 
ing came  in  the  East ;  then  a  wash  of  some  ineffable, 
faint,  nameless  hue  between  crimson  and  silver ;  and 
then  coals  of  fire.    These  glimmered  awhile  on  the  sea 


310     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

line,  and  sccniecl  to  brighten  and  darken  and  spread 
out;  and  still  the  night  and  the  stars  reigned  undis- 
turbed. It  was  as  though  a  spark  should  catch  and 
glow  and  creep  along  the  foot  of  some  heavy  and 
almost  incombustible  wall-hanging,  and  the  room 
itself  be  scarce  menaced.  Yet  a  little  after,  and  the 
whole  East  glowed  with  gold  and  scarlet,  and  the 
hollow  of  heaven  was  filled  with  the  daylight.  The 
isle — the  undiscovered,  the  scarce  believed  in — now 
lay  before  them  and  close  aboard;  and  Herrick 
thought  that  never  in  his  dreams  had  he  beheld  any- 
thing more  strange  and  delicate." 

Stevenson's  similes,  instead  of  illustrating  con- 
crete things  by  others  less  concrete,  often  reverse 
the  process,  as  in  the  following :  "  The  isle  at  this 
hour,  with  its  smooth  floor  of  sand,  the  pillared  roof 
overhead  and  the  pendant  illumination  of  the  lamps, 
wore  an  air  of  unreality,  like  a  deserted  theater  or  a 
public  garden  at  midnight."  Every  image  gets  its 
foothold  in  some  tap-root  of  reality. 

The  place  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  is  not  ex- 
plained by  emphasizing  the  perfection  of  his  tech- 
nique. Artist  he  is,  but  more:  a  vigorous  modem 
mind  with  a  definite  and  enheartening  view  of  things, 
a  philosophy  at  once  broad  and  convincing.  He 
is  a  psychologist  intensely  interested  in  the  great 
questions — which,  of  course,  means  the  moral  ques- 
tions. Read  the  quaint  Fable  in  which  two  of  the 
characters  in  "  Treasure  Island  "  hold  converse  upon 


STEVENSON  311 

themselves,  the  story  in  which  they  participate  and 
the  author  who  made  them.  It  is  as  if  Stevenson 
stood  aside  a  moment  from  the  proper  objectivity 
of  the  fictionist,  to  tell  us  in  his  own  person  that  all 
his  story-making  was  but  an  allegory  of  life,  its 
joy,  its  mystery,  its  duty,  its  triumph  and  its  doom. 
Although  he  is  too  much  the  artist  to  intrude  philo- 
sophic comments  upon  human  fate  into  his  fiction, 
after  the  fashion  of  Thackeray  or  Meredith,  the 
comment  is  there,  implicit  in  his  fiction,  even  as  it 
is  explicit  in  his  essays,  which  are  for  this  reason 
a  sort  of  complement  of  his  fiction:  a  sort  of  philo- 
sophical marginal  note  upon  the  stories.  Steven- 
son was  that  type  of  modem  mind  which,  no  longer 
finding  it  possible  to  hold  fast  by  the  older,  com- 
placent cock-sureness  with  regard  to  the  theologian's 
heaven,  is  still  unshaken  in  its  conviction  that  life 
is  beneficent,  the  obligation  of  duty  imperative,  the 
meaning  of  existence  spiritual.  Puzzlingly  protean 
in  his  expressional  moods  (his  conversations  in 
especial),  he  was  constant  in  this  intellectual,  or 
temperamental,  attitude :  "  Though  He  slay  me,  yet 
will  I  trust  Him,"  represents  his  feeling,  and  the 
strongest  poem  he  ever  wrote,  "  If  This  Were  Faith," 
voices  his  deepest  conviction.  Meanwhile,  the  super- 
ficies of  life  offered  a  hundred  consolations,  a  hundred 
pleasures,  and  Stevenson  would  have  his  fellowmcn 
enjoy  them  in  innocence,  in  kindness  and  good  cheer. 
In  fine,  as  a  thinker  he  was  a  modernized  Calvinist; 


3\2    ^fASTKHS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

as  an  artist  lie  saw  life  in  terms  of  action  and 
pleasure,  and  by  perfecting  himself  in  the  art  of 
communicating  his  view  of  life,  he  was  able,  in  a 
term  of  years  all  too  short,  to  leave  a  series  of 
hooks  which,  as  we  settle  down  to  them  in  the  twen- 
tieth century,  and  try  to  judge  them  as  literature, 
have  all  the  semblance  of  fine  art.  In  any  case, 
they  will  have  been  influential  in  the  shaping  of 
English  fiction  and  will  be  referred  to  with  respect 
by  future  historians  of  literature.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  that  the  desiccation  of  Time  will  so  dry  them 
that  they  will  not  always  exhale  a  rich  fragrance 
of  personality,  and  tremble  with  a  convincing  move- 
ment of  life. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION 


To  exclude  the  living,  as  we  must,  in  an  estimate 
of  the  American  contribution  to  the  development 
we  have  been  tracing,  is  especially  unjust.  Yet 
the  principle  must  be  applied.  The  injustice  lies 
in  the  fact  that  an  important  part  of  the  contribu- 
tion falls  on  the  hither  side  of  1870  and  has  to  do 
with  authors  still  active.  The  modern  realistic  move- 
ment in  English  fiction  has  been  affected  to  some 
degree  by  the  work,  has  responded  to  the  influence 
of  the  two  Americans,  Howells  and  James.  What 
has  been  accomplished  during  the  last  forty  years 
has  been  largely  under  their  leadership.  Mr. 
Howells,  true  to  his  own  definition,  has  practised 
the  more  truthful  handling  of  material  in  depicting 
chosen  aspects  of  the  native  life.  Mr.  James,  be- 
coming more  interested  in  British  types,  has,  after 
a  gi-eat  deal  of  analysis  of  his  own  countrymen, 
passed  by  the  bridge  of  the  international  Novel  to 
a  complete  absorption  in  transatlantic  studies,  mak- 
ing his  peculiar  application  of  the  realistic  formula 

313 


.'^It     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

to  the  inner  life  of  the  spirit:  a  curious  compound, 
a  cosmopolitan  Puritan,  an  urbane  student  of  souls. 
His  share  in  the  British  product  is  perhaps  ap- 
preciable; but  from  the  native  point  of  view,  at  least, 
it  would  seem  as  if  his  earlier  work  were,  and  would 
remain,  most  representative  both  because  of  its 
motives  and  methods.  Early  or  late,  he  has  beyond 
question  pointed  out  the  way  to  many  followers  in 
the  psychologic  path :  his  influence,  perhaps  less  ob- 
vious than  Howells',  is  none  the  less  undisputable. 
The  development  in  the  hands  of  writers  younger 
than  these  veterans  has  been  rich,  varied,  often  note- 
worthy in  quality.  But  of  all  this  it  is  too  soon 
to  speak. 

With  regard  to  the  fictional  evolution  on  Amer- 
ican soil,  it  is  clear  that  four  great  writers,  exclud- 
ing the  living,  separate  themselves  from  the  crowd : 
Irving,  Cooper,  Poe  and  Hawthorne.  Moreover, 
two  of  these.  Inking  and  Poe,  are  not  novelists  at 
all,  but  masters  of  the  sketch  or  short  story.  It 
will  be  best,  however,  for  our  purpose  to  give  them  all 
some  attention,  for  whatever  the  form  of  fiction  they 
used,  they  are  all  influential  in  the  development  of 
the  Novel. 

Other  authors  of  single  great  books  may  occur 
to  the  student,  perhaps  clamoring  for  admission  to 
a  company  so  select.  Yet  he  is  likely  always  to 
come  back  and  draw  a  dividing  line  here.  Bret 
Harte,  for  instance,  is  dead,  and  in  the  short  story 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        315 

of  western   flavor   he   was    a   pioneer   of  mark,   the 
founder  of  a  genre:  probably  no  other  writer  is  so 
significant  in  his  field.       But  here  again,  although 
he  essayed  full-length  fiction,  it  was  not  his   forte. 
So,  too,  were  it  not  that  Mark  Twain  still  cheers 
the  land  of  the  living  with  his  wise  fun,  there  would 
be  for  the  critic  the  question,  is  he  a  novelist,  humor- 
ist  or  essayist.       Is   "  Roughing  It  "   more  typical 
of  his  genius  than  "  Tom  Sawyer  "  or  "  Huckleberry 
Finn".?     How  shall  we  characterize  "Puddin'  Head 
Wilson".''      Under  what  category  shall  we  place  "A 
Yankee  at  the  Court  of  King  Arthur  "  and  "  Joan 
of  Arc "  ?     The  query   reminds   us   once   more  that 
literature  means  personality  as  well  as  literary  forms 
and   that   personality    is   more   important   than    are 
they.     And  again  we  turn  away  regretfully  (remem- 
bering that  this  is  an  attempt  to  study  not  fiction 
in   all  its  manifestations,  but  the   Novel)    from  the 
charming  short  stories — little  classics  in  their  kind — 
bequeathed  by  Aldrich,  and  are  almost   sorry  that 
our  judgment  demands   that  we  place  him   first   as 
a   poet.       We   think,   too,   of   that   book   so   unique 
in  influence,  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  nor  forget  that, 
besides  producing  it,  Mrs.  Stowe,  in  such  a  work  as 
"  Old  Town  Folks,"  started  the  long  line  of  studies 
of  New  England  rustic  life  which,  not  confined  to 
that   section,   have   become   so   welcome   a   phase   of 
later    American    art    in    fiction.      Among    younger 
authors  called  untimely  from  their  labors,  it  is  hard 


;>lt)     MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH   NOVEL 

to  resist  the  toniptation  lo  linger  over  such  a  figure 
as  that  of  Frank  Norris,  whose  vital  way  of  hantUing 
realistic  material  with  epic  breath  in  his  unfinished 
trilogy,  gave  so  great  promise  for  his  future. 

It  may  be  conceded  that  nothing  is  more  worth 
mention  in  American  fiction  of  the  past  generation 
than  the  extraordinary  cultivation  of  the  short-story, 
which  Mr.  Brander  Matthews  dignifies  and  unifies 
by  a  hyphen,  in  order  to  express  his  conviction  that 
it  is  an  essentially  new  art  form,  to  study  which  is  a 
fascinating  quest,  but  aside  from  our  main  intention. 

II 

Having  due  regard  then  for  perspective,  and  try- 
ing not  to  confuse  historical  importance  with  the 
more  vital  interest  which  implies  permanent  claims, 
it  seems  pretty  safe  to  come  back  to  Irving  and  Poe, 
to  Cooper  and  Hawthorne.  Even  as  in  the  sketch 
and  tale  Irving  stands  alone  with  such  a  master- 
piece as  "  The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow  " ;  and  Poe 
equally  by  himself  with  his  tales  of  psychological  hor- 
ror and  mystery,  so  in  longer  fiction.  Cooper  and 
Hawthorne  have  made  as  distinct  contributions  in  the 
domain  of  Romance.  Their  service  is  as  definite  for 
the  day  of  the  Romantic  spirit,  as  is  that  of  Howells 
and  James  for  the  modern  day  of  realism  so-called. 
It  is  not  hard  to  see  that  Irving  even  in  his  fiction  is 
essentially  an  essayist ;  that  with  him  story  was  not 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        317 

the  main  thing,  but  that  atmosphere,  character  and 
style  were, — the  personal  comment  upon  life.  One 
reads  a  sketch  like  "  The  Stout  Gentleman,"  in  every 
way  a  typical  work,  for  anything  but  incident  or  plot. 
The  Hudson  River  idyls,  it  may  be  granted,  have 
somewhat  more  of  story  interest,  but  Irving  seized 
them,  ready-made  for  his  use,  because  of  their  value 
for  the  picturesque  evocation  of  the  Past.  He  al- 
ways showed  a  keen  sense  of  the  pictorial  and  dra- 
matic in  legend  and  history,  as  the  "  Alhambra " 
witnesses  quite  as  truly  as  the  sketches.  "  Brace- 
bridge  Hall"  and  "The  Sketch  Book,"  whatever 
of  the  fictional  they  may  contain,  are  the  work  of 
the  essayist  primarily,  and  Washington  Irving  will 
always,  in  a  critical  view,  be  described  as  a  master 
of  the  English  essay.  No  other  maker  of  American 
literature  affords  so  good  an  example  of  the  intcr- 
colation  of  essay  and  fiction:  he  recalls  the  organic 
relation  between  the  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  Papers 
and  the  eighteenth  century  Novel  proper  of  a  genera- 
tion later. 

His  service  to  all  later  writers  of  fiction  was  large 
in  that  he  taught  them  the  use  of  promising  native 
material  that  awaited  the  story-maker.  His  own 
use  of  it,  the  Hudson,  the  environs  of  Manhattan, 
was  of  course  romantic,  in  the  main.  When  in  an 
occasional  story  he  is  unpleasant  in  detail  or  tragic 
in  trend  he  seems  less  characteristic — so  definitely 
was  he  a  romanticist,  seeking  beauty  and  wishing  to 


:ns    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

throw  over  life  the  kinilly  glamour  of  imaginative 
art.  It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that  he  looked 
forward  rather  than  back,  towards  the  coming  real- 
ism, not  to  the  incurable  pseudo-romanticism  of  the 
late  eighteenth  century,  in  his  instinct  to  base  his 
happenings  upon  the  bedrock  of  truth — the  external 
truth  of  scene  and  character  and  the  inner  truth 
of  human  psjcholog3\ 

xVdmirably  a  modem  artist  in  this  respect,  his 
old-fashionedness,  so  often  dilated  upon,  can  easily 
be  overstated.  He  not  only  left  charming  work  in 
the  tale,  but  helped  others  who  came  after  to  use 
their  tools,  furthering  their  art  by  the  study  of  a 
good  model. 

Nothing  was  more  inevitable  then  that  Cooper 
when  he  began  fiction  in  mid-manhood  should  have 
written  the  romance:  it  was  the  dominant  form  in 
England  because  of  Scott.  But  that  he  should  have 
realized  the  unused  resources  of  America  and  pro- 
duced a  long  series  of  adventure  stories,  taking  a 
pioneer  as  his  hero  and  illustrating  the  western  life 
of  settlement  in  his  career,  the  settlement  that  was 
to  reclaim  a  wilderness  for  a  mighty  civilization — 
that  was  a  thing  less  to  be  expected,  a  truly  epic 
achievement.  The  Leather  Stocking  Series  was  in 
the  strictest  sense  an  original  performance — the  sig- 
nificance of  Fenimore  Cooper  is  not  likely  to  be 
exaggerated ;  it  is  quite  independent  of  the  question 
of  his  present  hold  upon  mature  readers,  his  faults 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        319 

of  technique  and  the  truth  of  his  pictures.  To  have 
grasped  such  an  opportunity  and  so  to  have  used 
it  as  to  become  a  great  man-of-letters  at  a  time 
when  literature  was  more  a  private  employ  than 
the  interest  of  the  general — surely  it  indicates 
genuine  personality,  and  has  the  mark  of  creative 
power.  To  which  we  may  add,  that  Cooper  is  still 
vital  in  his  appeal,  as  the  statistics  of  our  public 
libraries  show. 

Moreover,  incorrigible  romancer  that  he  was,  he 
is  a  man  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  was  Irving, 
in  the  way  he  instinctively  chose  near-at-hand  native 
material:  he  knew  the  Mohawk  Valley  by  long  resi- 
dence; he  knew  the  Indian  and  the  trapper  there; 
and  he  depicted  these  types  in  a  setting  that  was 
to  him  the  most  familiar  thing  in  the  world.  In 
fact,  we  have  in  him  an  illustration  of  the  modem 
writer  who  knows  he  must  found  his  message  finnly 
upon  reality.  For  both  Leather-stocking  and 
Chingachgook  are  true  in  the  broad  sense,  albeit  the 
white  trapper's  dialect  may  be  uncertain  and  the 
red  man  exhibit  a  dignity  that  seems  Roman  rather 
than  aboriginal.  The  Daniel  Boone  of  history  must 
have  had,  we  feel,  the  nobler  qualities  of  Bumpo ; 
how  otherwise  did  he  do  what  it  was  his  destiny  to 
do.^*  In  the  same  way,  the  Indian  of  Cooper  is  the 
red  man  in  his  pristine  home  before  the  day  of  fire- 
water and  Agency  methods.  It  may  be  that  what 
to  us  to-day  seems  a  too  glorified  picture  is  nearer 


.SJO    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

the  fact  than  we  arc  in  a  position  easily  to  realize. 
Cooper  worked  in  the  older  method  of  primary  colors, 
of  vivid,  even  violent  contrasts:  his  was  not  the 
school  of  subtleties.  His  women,  for  example,  strike 
us  as  somewhat  mechanical ;  there  is  a  sameness  about 
them  that  means  the  failure  to  differentiate :  the 
Ibsenian  psychology  of  the  sex  was  still  to  come. 
But  this  docs  not  alter  the  obvious  excellencies  of 
the  work.  Cooper  carried  his  romanticism  in  pre- 
senting the  heroic  aspects  of  the  life  he  knew  best 
into  other  fields  where  he  walked  with  hardly  less 
success :  the  revolutionary  story  illustrated  by  "  The 
Spy,"  and  the  sea-talc  of  which  a  fine  example  is 
"  The  Pilot."  He  had  a  sure  instinct  for  those 
elements  of  fiction  which  make  for  romance,  and 
the  change  of  time  and  place  affects  him  only  in 
so  far  as  it  affects  his  familiarity  with  his  materials. 
His  experience  in  the  United  States  Navy  gave  him 
a  sure  hand  in  the  sea  novels :  and  in  a  book  like 
"  The  Spy  "  he  was  near  enough  to  the  scenes  and 
characters  to  use  studies  practically  contemporary. 
He  had  the  born  romanticist's  natural  affection  for 
the  appeal  of  the  past  and  the  stock  elements  can 
be  counted  upon  in  all  his  best  fiction:  salient  per- 
sonalities, the  march  of  events,  exciting  situations, 
and  ever  that  arch-romantic  lure,  the  one  trick  up 
the  sleeve  to  pique  anticipation.  Hence,  in  spite 
of  descriptions  that  seem  over-long,  a  heavy-footed 
manner  that  lacks  suppleness  and  variety,  and  un- 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        321 

deniable  carelessness  of  construction,  he  is  still  loved 
of  the  young  and  seen  to  be  a  natural  raconteur,  an 
improviser  of  the  Dumas-Scott  lineage  and,  even 
tested  by  the  later  tests,  a  noble  writer  of  romance, 
a  man  whom  Balzac  and  Goethe  read  with  admira- 
tion: unquestionably  influential  outside  his  own  land 
in  that  romantic  mood  of  expression  which,  during 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  so  wide- 
spread and  fruitful. 

Ill 

It  is  the  plainer  with  every  year  that  Poe's  con- 
tribution to  American  fiction,  and  indeed  to  that 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  ignoring  national  bound- 
aries, stands  by  itself.  Whatever  his  sources — and 
no  writer  appears  to  derive  less  from  the  past — he 
practically  created  on  native  soil  the  tale  of  fantasy, 
sensational  plot,  and  morbid  impressionism.  His 
cold  aloofness,  his  lack  of  spiritual  import,  unfitted 
him  perhaps  for  the  broader  work  of  the  novelist 
who  would  present  humanity  in  its  three  dimensions 
with  the  light  and  shade  belonging  to  Life  itself. 
Confining  himself  to  the  tale  which  he  believed  could 
be  more  artistic  because  it  was  briefer  and  so  the 
natural  mold  for  a  mono-mood,  he  had  the  genius 
so  to  handle  color,  music  and  suggestion  in  an 
atmosphere  intense  In  its  subjectivity,  that  confessed 
masterpieces  were  the  issue.  Whether  in  the  ob- 
jective detail  of  "  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue," 


S'22     MASTl'.RS  Ol'    TlIK    KNCiLISH   NOVFX 

with  its  subtle  illusion  of  realism,  or  in  the  nuances 
and  dclicatcst  tonality  of  "  Ligeia,"  he  has  left 
specimens  of  the  different  degrees  of  romance  which 
have  not  been  surpassed,  conquering  in  all  but  that 
highest  style  of  romantic  writing  where  the  romance 
lies  in  an  emphasis  upon  the  noblest  traits  of  man- 
kind. He  is,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  well-nigh 
as  important  to  the  growth  of  modern  fiction  out- 
side the  Novel  form  as  he  is  to  that  of  poetry, 
though  possibly  less  unique  on  his  prose  side.  His 
fascination  is  that  of  art  and  intellect:  his  material 
and  the  mastery  wherewith  he  handles  it  conjoin 
to  make  his  particular  brand  of  magic.  While  some 
one  story  of  Hoffman  or  Bulwer  Lytton  or  Steven- 
son may  be  preferred,  no  one  author  of  our  time 
has  produced  an  equal  number  of  successes  in  the 
same  key.  It  is  instructive  to  compare  him  with 
Hawthorne  because  of  a  superficial  resemblance  with 
an  underlj'ing  fundamental  distinction.  One  phase 
of  the  Concord  romancer's  art  results  in  stories  which 
seem  perhaps  as  somber,  strange  and  morbid  as  those 
of  Poe :  "  Dr.  Heidegger's  Experiment,"  "  Rapa- 
cinni's  Daughter,"  "  The  Birth  Mark."  They  stand, 
of  course,  for  but  one  side  of  his  power,  of  which 
"  The  Great  Stone  Face  "  and  "  The  Snow  Image  " 
are  the  brighter  and  sweeter.  Thus  Hawthorne's 
is  a  broader  and  more  diversified  accomplishment 
in  the  form  of  the  tale.  But  the  likeness  has  to 
do  with  subject-matter,  not  with  the  spirit  of  the 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        323 

work.  The  gloomiest  of  Hawthorne's  short  stories 
are  spiritually  sound  and  sweet:  Poe's,  on  the  con- 
trary, might  be  described  as  unmoral;  they  seem 
written  by  one  disdaining  all  the  touchstones  of 
life,  living  in  a  land  of  eyrie  where  there  is  no  moral 
law.  He  would  no  more  than  Lamb  indict  his  very 
dreams.  In  the  case  of  Hawthorne  there  is  allegor- 
ical meaning,  the  lesson  is  never  far  to  seek:  a  basis 
of  common  spiritual  responsibility  is  always  below 
one's  feet.  And  this  is  quite  as  true  of  the  long 
romances  as  of  the  tales.  The  result  is  that  there 
is  spiritual  tonic  in  Hawthorne's  fiction,  while  some- 
thing almost  miasmatic  rises  from  Poe,  dropping 
a  kind  of  veil  between  us  and  the  salutary  realities 
of  existence.  If  Poe  be  fully  as  gifted,  he  is,  for 
this  reason,  less  sanely  endowed.  It  may  be  con- 
ceded that  he  is  not  always  as  shudderingly  sar- 
donic and  removed  from  human  sympathy  as  in 
"  The  Cask  of  Amontillado  "  or  "  The  Black  Cat"; 
yet  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  affirm  that  he  is  nowhere 
more  typical,  more  himself.  On  the  contrary,  in 
a  tale  like  "  The  Birth  Mark,"  what  were  otherwise 
the  horror  and  ultra-realism  of  it,  is  tempered  by 
and  merged  in  the  suggestion  that  no  man  shall 
with  impunity  tamper  with  Nature  nor  set  the  de- 
light of  the  eyes  above  the  treasures  o'f  the  soul. 
The  poor  wife  dies,  because  her  husband  cares  more 
to  remove  a  slight  physical  defect  than  he  does  for 
her  health  and  life.      So  it  cannot  be  said  of  the 


r,^2\.     MASTl'RS  OF  THE  ENCILISII   NOVEL 

somber  work  in  tlie  tale  of  tlicsc  two  sons  of  genius 
that, 

"  A  common  grayness  silvers  everjiJiing," 

since  the  gifts  are  so  differently  exercised  and  the 
artistic  product  of  totally  dissimilar  texture. 
Moreover,  Poe  is  quite  incapable  of  the  lovely 
naivete  of  "  The  Snow  Image,"  or  the  sun-kissed 
atmosphere  of  the  wonder-book.  Humor,  except  in 
the  satiric  vein,  is  hardly  more  germane  to  the  genius 
of  Hawthorne  than  to  that  of  Poe:  its  occasional 
exercise  is  seldom  if  ever  happy. 

Although  most  literary  comparisons  are  futile  be- 
cause of  the  disparateness  of  the  things  compared, 
the  present  one  seems  legitimate  in  the  cases  of  Poe 
and  Hawthorne,  superficially  so  alike  in  their  short- 
story  work. 

IV 

In  the  romances  in  which  he  is,  by  common  consent, 
our  greatest  practitioner,  to  be  placed  first  indeed 
of  all  who  have  written  fiction  of  whatever  kind  on 
American  soil,  Hawthorne  never  forsakes — subtle, 
spiritual,  elusive,  even  intangible  as  he  may  seem — 
the  firm  underfooting  of  mother  earth.  His  themes 
are  richly  human,  his  psychologic  tinith  (the  most 
modem  note  of  realism)  unerring  in  its  accuracy 
and  insight.  As  part  of  his  romantic  endowment, 
he  prefers  to  place  plot  and  personages  in  the  dim 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        325 

backward  of  Time,  gaining  thus  in  perspective  and 
ampleness  of  atmosphere.  He  has  told  us  as  much 
in  the  preface  to  "  The  House  of  The  Seven  Gables," 
that  wonderful  study  in  subdued  tone-colors.  That 
pronunciamento  of  a  great  artist  (from  which  in  an 
earlier  chapter  quotation  has  been  made)  should  not 
be  overlooked  by  one  who  essays  to  get  a  hint  of 
his  secret.  He  is  always  exclusively  engaged  with 
questions  of  conscience  and  character;  like  George 
Meredith,  his  only  interest  is  in  soul-growth.  This 
is  as  true  in  the  "  Marble  Faun  "  with  its  thought 
of  the  value  of  sin  in  the  spiritual  life,  or  in  "  The 
Blithedale  Romance,"  wherein  poor  Zenobia  learns 
how  infinitely  hard  it  is  for  a  woman  to  oppose  the 
laws  of  society,  as  it  is  in  the  more  obvious  lesson 
of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter."  In  this  respect  the  four 
romances  are  all  of  a  piece:  they  testify  to  their 
spiritual  parentage.  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  if  the 
greatest,  is  only  so  for  the  reason  that  the  theme 
is  deepest,  most  fundamental,  and  the  by-gone  New 
England  setting  most  sympathetic  to  the  author's 
loving  interest.  Plainly  an  allegory,  it  yet  escapes 
the  danger  of  becoming  therefore  poor  fiction,  by 
being  first  of  all  a  study  of  veritable  men  and  women, 
not  lay-figures  to  carry  out  an  argument.  The  eyes 
of  the  imagination  can  always  see  Esther  Prynne 
and  Dimmesdalo,  honest  but  weak  man  of  God,  the 
evil  Chillingworth  and  little  Pearl  who  is  all  child, 
unearthly  though  she  be,  a  symbol  at  once  of  lost 


;i{>G    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

imioccncc  and  a  hope  of  renewed  purity.  No  pale 
abstractions  these;  no  folk  in  fiction  arc  more  be- 
lieved in :  they  are  of  our  own  kindred  with  whom  we 
suffer  or  fondly  rejoice.  In  a  story  so  metaphysical 
as  "  The  House  of  The  Seven  Gables,"  full  justice  to 
which  has  hardly  been  done  (it  was  Hawthorne's 
favorite),  while  the  background  oflf'ered  by  the  his- 
toric old  mansion  is  of  intention  low-toned  and  dim, 
there  is  no  obscurity,  though  plenty  of  innuendo 
and  suggestion.  The  romance  is  a  noble  specimen 
of  that  use  of  the  vague  which  never  falls  into  the 
confusion  of  indeterminate  ideas.  The  theme  is 
startlingly  clear:  a  sin  is  shown  Avorking  through 
generations  and  only  to  find  expiation  in  the  fresh 
health  of  the  younger  descendants :  life  built  on  a 
lie  must  totter  to  its  fall.  And  the  shell  of  all 
this  spiritual  seething — the  gabled  Salem  house — 
may  at  last  be  purified  and  renovated  for  a  posterity 
which,  because  it  is  not  paralyzed  by  the  dark  past, 
can  also  start  anew  with  hope  and  health,  while  every 
room  of  the  old  home  is  swept  through  and  cleansed 
by  the  wholesome  winds  of  heaven. 

Forgetting  for  a  moment  the  immense  spiritual 
meaning  of  this  noble  quartet  of  romances,  and  re- 
garding them  as  works  of  art  in  the  straiter  sense, 
they  are  felt  to  be  practically  blameless  examples 
of  the  principle  of  adapting  means  to  a  desired 
end.  As  befits  the  nature  of  the  themes,  the  move- 
ment in  each  case  is  slow,  pregnant  with  significance, 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        327 

cumulative  in  effect,  the  tempo  of  each  in  exquisite 
accord  with  the  particular  motive:  compared  with 
"  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  "  The  House  of  The  Seven 
Gables  "  moves  somewhat  more  quickly,  a  slight  in- 
crease to  suit  the  action :  it  is  swiftest  of  all  in  "  The 
Blithedale  Romance,"  with  its  greater  objectivity 
of  action  and  interest,  its  more  mundane  air :  while 
there  is  a  cunning  unevenness  in  the  two  parts  of 
"  The  Marble  Faun,"  as  is  right  for  a  romance 
which  first  presents  a  tragic  situation  (as  external 
climax)  and  then  shows  in  retarded  progress  that 
inward  drama  of  the  soul  more  momentous  than  any 
outer  scene  or  situation  can  possibly  be.  After  Dona- 
tello's  deed  of  death,  because  what  follows  is  psycho- 
logically the  most  important  part  of  the  book,  the 
speed  slackens  accordingly.  Quiet,  too,  and  un- 
sensational  as  Hawthorne  seems,  he  possessed  a 
marked  dramatic  power.  His  denouements  are  over- 
whelming in  grip  and  scenic  value:  the  stage  effect 
of  the  scaffold  scene  in  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  the 
murder  scene  in  the  "  Marble  Faun,"  the  tragic 
close  of  Zenobia's  career  in  "  The  Blithedale  Ro- 
mance," such  scenes  are  never  arbitrary  and  de- 
tached; they  are  tonal,  led  up  to  by  all  that  goes 
before.  The  remark  applies  equally  to  that  awful 
picture  in  "  The  House  of  The  Seven  Gables,"  where 
the  Judge  sits  dead  in  his  chair  and  the  minutes 
are  ticked  off  by  a  seemingly  sentient  clock.  An 
element    in    this    tonality    is    naturally    Hawthorne's 


328    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

style:  it  is  the  bust  illustration  American  literature 
affords  of  excellence  of  pattern  in  contrast  with  the 
"  purple  patch  "  manner  of  writing  so  popular  in 
modern  diction. 

Congruity,  the  subjection  of  the  parts  to  the 
whole,  and  to  the  end  in  view — the  doctrine  of  key — 
Hawthorne  illustrates  all  this.  If  we  do  not  mark 
passages  and  delectate  over  phrases,  we  receive  an 
exquisite  sense  of  harmony — and  harmony  is  the  last 
word  of  style.  It  is  this  power  which  helps  to  make 
him  a  great  man-of-letters,  as  well  as  a  master  of 
romance.  One  can  imagine  him  neither  making  haste 
to  furnish  "  copy  "  nor  pausing  by  the  way  for  orna- 
ment's sake.  He  knew  that  the  only  proper  decora- 
tion was  an  integral  efflorescence  of  structure.  He 
looked  beyond  to  the  fabric's  design :  a  man  decently 
poor  in  this  world's  gear,  he  was  more  concerned 
with  good  work  than  with  gain.  Of  such  are  art's 
kingdom  of  heaven. 

Are  there  flaws  in  the  weaving?  They  are  small 
indeed.  His  didacticism  is  more  in  evidence  in  the 
tales  than  in  the  romances,  where  the  fuller  body 
allows  the  writer  to  be  more  objective:  still,  judged 
by  present-day  standards,  there  are  times  when  he 
is  too  obviously  the  preacher  to  please  modern  taste. 
In  "  The  Great  Stone  Face,"  for  instance,  it  were 
better,  one  feels,  if  the  moral  had  been  more  veiled, 
more  subtly  implied.  As  to  this,  it  is  well  to 
remember  that  criticism  changes  its  canons  with  the 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        329 

years  and  that  Hawthorne  simply  adapted  himself 
(unconsciously,  as  a  spokesman  of  his  day)  to  con- 
temporaneous standards.  His  audience  was  less 
averse  from  the  principle  that  the  artist  should  on 
no  account  usurp  the  pulpit's  function.  If  the  art- 
ist-preacher had  a  golden  mouth,  it  was  enough. 
This  has  perhaps  always  been  the  attitude  of  the 
mass  of  mankind. 

A  defect  less  easy  to  condone  is  this  author's 
attempts  at  humor.  They  are  for  the  most  part 
lumbering  and  forced:  you  feel  the  effort.  Haw- 
thorne lacked  the  easy  manipulation  of  this  gift 
and  his  instinct  served  him  aright  when  he  avoided 
it,  as  most  often  he  did.  A  few  of  the  short  stories 
are  conceived  in  the  vein  of  burlesque,  and  such  it 
is  a  kindness  not  to  name.  They  give  pain  to  any 
who  love  and  revere  so  mighty  a  spirit.  In  the 
occasional  use  of  humor  in  the  romances,  too,  he 
does  not  always  escape  just  condemnation:  as  where 
Judge  Pincheon  is  described  taking  a  walk  on  a 
snowy  morning  down  the  village  street,  his  visage 
wreathed  in  such  spacious  smiles  that  the  snow 
on  either  side  of  his  progress  melts  before  the 
rays. 

For  some  the  style  of  Hawthorne  may  now  be  felt 
to  possess  a  certain  artificiality:  the  price  paid  for 
that  effect  of  stateliness  demanded  by  the  theme  and 
suggestive  also  of  the  fact  that  the  words  were 
written   over  half  a  century   ago.       In  these  days 


380    MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

of  pliotographic  realism  of  word  and  idiom,  our 
conception  of  what  is  fit  in  diction  lias  suffered  a 
sea-change.  Our  ear  is  adjusted  to  another  tune. 
Admirable  as  have  been  the  gains  in  broadening  the 
native  resources  of  speech  by  the  introduction  of 
old  English  elements,  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
early  years  of  the  nineteenth  can  still  teach  us,  and 
it  is  not  beyond  credence  that  the  eventual  modem 
ideal  of  speech  may  react  to  an  equilibrium  of  mingled 
native  and  foreign-fetched  words.  In  such  an  event 
a  writer  like  Hawthorne  will  be  confirmed  in  his 
mastery. 

Remarkable,  Indeed,  and  latest  in  time  has  been 
the  romantic  reaction  from  the  extremes  of  realistic 
presentation :  it  has  given  the  United  States,  even  as 
it  has  England,  some  sterling  fiction.  This  we  can 
see,  though  it  is  a  phenomenon  too  recent  to  offer 
clear  deductions  as  yet.  What  appears  to  be  the 
main  difference  between  it  and  the  romantic  inherit- 
ance from  Scott  and  Hawthorne.''  One,  if  not  the 
chief  divergence,  would  seem  to  be  the  inevitable 
degeneration  which  comes  from  haste,  mercantile 
pressure,  imitation  and  lack  of  commanding  author- 
ity. There  is  plenty  of  technique,  comparatively 
little  personality.  Yet  it  may  be  unfair  to  the  pres- 
ent to  make  the  comparison,  for  the  incompetents 
buzz  in  our  ears,  while  time  has  mercifully  stilled 
the  bogus  romances  of  G.  P.  R.  James,  et  id  omne 
genus. 


THE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTION        331 

But  allowing  for  all  distortion  of  time,  a  creative 
figure  like  that  of  Hawthorne  still  towers,  serene  and 
alone,  above  the  little  troublings  of  later  days,  and 
like  his  own  Stone  Face,  reflects  the  sun  and  the 
storm,  bespeaking  the  greater  things  of  the  human 
spirit. 


THE   END 


INDEX 


'Absentee,  The,  by  Edgeworth, 
100. 

Adam  Bede,  by  George  Eliot, 
popularity,  227,  229;  auto- 
biographical note  and  other 
sources  of  strength,  227; 
author's  first  novel  and  her 
feeling  toward,  228;  worth 
as  picture  of  contemporary 
middle-class  life,  228;  fresh 
treatment  of  old  theme, 
229;   also,  222. 

Addison,  Joseph,  and  genesis 
of  modern  journalism,  7. 

Adventures  of  Ferdinand 
Count  Fathom,  by  Smollett, 
80. 

Adventures  of  Harry  Rich- 
mond, by  Meredith,  pur- 
pose and  teaching,  287,  288; 
composite  character  of  dom- 
inant figure,  288;  also,  281, 
284, 

Adventures  of  Joseph  An- 
drews and  His  Friend  Abra- 
ham Adams,  by  Fielding, 
publication  in  1742,  49;  sug- 
gested by  Pamela,  49;  re- 
ception in  London,  50,  55; 
contrasted  with  work  of 
Richardson,  50;  little  plot, 
52. 

A  dventures  of  Peregrine 
Pickle,  by  Smollett,   79,  80. 

Adventures  of  Philip,  by 
Thackeray,  204. 

Adventures  of  Roderick  Ran- 


dom, by  Smollett,  publica- 
tion and  contemporaries,  73; 
pictures  life  in  Jamaica  and 
in  navy,  76;  doubtfully 
autobiographic,  76. 

Adventures  of  Sir  Launcelot 
Graves,  by  Smollett,  81. 

Advocates'  Library,  Edin- 
burgh, 133. 

Age  limit  in  literary  produc- 
tion, Richardson,  Defoe, 
Eliot,  Browning,  Du  Mau- 
rier,  De  Morgan,  25. 

Alchemist,  The,  by  Fielding, 
59. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  re- 
ferred  to,  315. 

Alhambra,  The,  by  Irving, 
317. 

Alton  Locke,  by  Kingsley, 
comparison  with  Felix  Holt, 
249. 

Altruism,  Propagation  of,  in 
eighteenth  century,  9. 

Amazing  Marriage,  The,  by 
Meredith,  280. 

Amelia,  by  Fielding,  his  last 
novel,  67;  comparison  with 
Tom  Jones,  67;  autobiogra- 
phical, 68;  lack  of  popular- 
ity, 69. 

Anglo-Saxon  fiction,  reserves 
and  delicacies  of,  143. 

Animals,  their  part  in  modern 
novels,   17. 

Anne,  Queen,  new  social  tend- 
encies during  reign,  6. 


333 


33t 


INDEX 


Anne,  Queen,  period.  Senti- 
mentality of,  30. 

.hitiqiKiri/,  The,  by  Scott,  126; 
.*<<'  oLio,  Wavcrlei/  Nore!s. 

Arabian  Xit/ht.i,  model  for 
Shavinp   of  Shagpat,  i!?81. 

Arcjent,  U,  by   Zola,   165. 

Aristopbanes,  referred  to,  ^81. 

Armxdalc.  by  Collins,  260. 

Arnold,  Mattbew,  Hardy  com- 
pared witb,  278. 

Art  et  Morale,  L',  by  Brune- 
tiere,  54. 

Art  for  Art's  Sake,  198,  199, 
262. 

As  You  Like  It,  by  Shaks- 
pere,  4. 

Ascham,  Roger,  quoted,  42. 

Assisi,  St.  Francis  of,  quoted, 
17. 

Assommoir,  U,  by  Zola,  264. 

.Vusten,  Jane,  attitude  toward 
writing,  19;  a  finished  artist, 
71 ;  satirizes  romances  of 
mysterj'  and  horror,  96; 
position  as  realist,  102;  life 
at  Steventon,  102;  and  at 
Bath,  103;  chronologic  set- 
ting, 103;  manner  of  writing 
and  technique,  103,  116;  con- 
trasted with  Fanny  Burney, 
103;  works  published  in 
parts,  104;  amateur  writing 
paradox  of  literature,  104; 
example  of  recognizing  limi- 
tations, 104;  power  of  self- 
criticism,  105;  work  likened 
to  miniature  painting,  105; 
familiarity  with  her  subject, 
105;  King  George  III.  in- 
vites her  to  write  a  romance 
of  House  of  Coburg,  105; 
refusal,  106;  characteristics 
of  work,  106,  108;  plots  of 
principal  novels,  107; 
method    as    fiction    maker. 


1 09 ;  characters  familiar 
ty|)is,  110;  heroines  con- 
trasted with  tiiose  of  Hardy, 
110;  danger  and  charm.  111, 
121;  instances  of  over- 
drawn character,  113;  of 
contracted  views  and  class- 
distinctions,  114;  compari- 
son with  George  Kliot  and 
Meredith,  115;  and  with 
Dickens,  120;  plots  skilfully 
conducted,  116;  based  on 
love  stories,  118;  style,  120; 
comparison  with  Mrs.  Stowe, 
121;  and  others,  122;  with 
Scott,  143;  influence  on 
realism,  175;  opinion  of 
Howells,  175;  Trollope  com- 
pared with,  253,  257;  re- 
ferred to,  99,  150. 
Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast 
Table,  by  Holmes,  8. 

Bacon,  Francis,  and  the  Eng- 
lish essay,  7. 

Balzac,  Honore  de,  effect  of 
crowded  existence  in  work, 
66;  personality  merged  in 
characters,  75;  early  studies 
of  the  Human  Comedy,  152; 
acknowledges  debt  to  Beyle, 
152;  leader  and  shaper  of 
modern  fiction,  154;  colossal 
work  of  Human  Comedy, 
154;  habits  while  writing, 
160;  power  of  envisaging 
war,  164;  place  in,  and  con- 
ception of  realism,  167,  169; 
method  adopted  by  Dickens, 
167;  psychologic  analysis, 
167;  conception  of  duty  of 
social  historian,  169;  Sliaks- 
p  e  r  i  a  n  imiversality  of 
work,  170;  limitations  of 
time  and  place,  170;  atti- 
tude as  a  modern,  171;  in- 


INDEX 


335 


fluence  over  nineteenth  cen- 
tury fiction,  171;  personal 
fascination  upon  reader, 
171;  death,  172;  contribu- 
tion to  fiction,  363;  referred 
to,  110,  141,  151,  152,  321; 
see  also,  Human  Comedy. 

Barnaby  Rudge,  by  Dickens, 
181. 

Barry  Lyndon,  by  Thackeray, 
203,  288. 

Bath,  England,   103. 

Beach  of  Falesa,  by  Steven- 
son, 303. 

Beaconsfield,  Earl  of,  see  Dis- 
raeli, Benjamin,  Earl  of 
Beaconsfield. 

Beau  Nash,   153. 

Beaucaire,  153. 

Beauchamp's  Career,  by  Mere- 
dith, valuable  treatment  of 
EngUsh  politics,  384,  293; 
mannerisms  of  style,  394. 

Becky  Sharp,  contrasted  with 
Sarah  Gamp,  184;  compari- 
son with  Countess  de  Saldar 
in  Evan  Harrington,  287; 
see  also.  Vanity  Fair. 

Belinda,  by  Edgeworth,  100. 

Beoivulf,  3. 

Beyle,  Henri  (pseud.  Sten- 
dahl),  introduced  novel  of 
psychic  analysis,  151;  fol- 
lowed by  Balzac  and  others, 
153;  held  posts  under  Na- 
poleon, 153;  first  great  real- 
ist in   France,   16G. 

Birth  Mark,  The,  by  Haw- 
thorne, 323,  323 

Black  Arrow,  The,  by  Steven- 
son, 306. 

Black  Cat,  The,  by  Poe,  323. 

Bleak  House,  by  Dickens, 
189. 

"  Blackguard  Parson,  The," 
Sterne  called,  86, 


Blithedale  Romance,  The,  by 
Hawthorne,  325. 

Book  of  Snobs,  The,  by 
Thackeray,  its  satire,  200, 
201. 

Boone,  Daniel,  referred  to, 
319. 

Borrow,  George,  referred  to, 
261. 

Boswell,  James,  prejudice 
against  Fielding,  51. 

Bottle  Imp,  The,  by  Steven- 
son, 303. 

Boxhill,  Surrey,  home  of 
Meredith,  282. 

Bracebridge  Hall,  by  Irving, 
317. 

British  Society  of  Authors, 
Meredith  President  of,  283. 

Brodingagnians,  The,  see  Gul- 
liver's Travels. 

Brontes,  The,  isolation  in  real- 
istic age,  359;  personal 
qualities  and  evaluation  of 
work,  359;  attitude  of  Char- 
lotte Bronte  toward  Thack- 
eray, 359;   referred  to,  244. 

Brookfield,  Mrs.,  friend  of 
Thackeray,  201. 

Brown,  Charles  Brockden, 
Wieland,  96. 

Browning,  Robert,  age  at  pub- 
lication of  The  Ring  and  the 
Book,  25;  Meredith  com- 
pared with,  293;  quoted  or 
referred  to,  119,   156. 

"  Browning  of  Prose,  The," 
Meredith   called,  393. 

Brunetiere,  Ferdinand,  L'Art 
et  Morale,  quoted,  44,  54; 
also,   157. 

Bulwer,  Edward  George  Earle 
Lytton,  Baron  Lytton,  com- 
parison with  Austen,  132; 
chronologic  setting,  244 ; 
poet,  dramatist,  and  diplo- 


836 


INDEX 


mat,  i?15;  roin].<irison  with 
Disraeli,  2\S;  mixture  of 
sentimentality  and  truth, 
248;  hold  on  present-day 
readers,  i?t8;  referred  to, 
176,  i227,  260,  322. 

Burns,  Robert,  referred  to, 
ISl. 

Burncy,  Fanny,  first  woman 
novelist  of  importance,  98, 
99;  Dr.  Johnson's  iove  for, 
99;  fashionable  society  de- 
picted in  Evelina  and  Ce- 
cilia, 99;  value  of  her  Diary, 
99;  quoted,  19. 

Byron,  George  Gordon  Noel, 
Lord,  attitude  toward  liter- 
ary professionalism,  20. 

Ccesar  Biroiteau,  by  Balzac, 
165;  see  also,  Human  Com- 
edy. 

Caleb  Williams,  by  Godwin, 
95. 

Caricature,  in  Pamela,  48;  in 
Dickens,  183;  aim,  183;  test, 
184. 

Carlisle,  Lady  Mary,  103. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  quoted,  131, 
149. 

Cask  of  Amontillado,  The,  by 
Poe,  323. 

Castle  of  Otranto,  by  Wal- 
pole,  96. 

Castle  Rackrent,  by  Edge- 
worth,  100. 

Cathedral  series,  by  Trollope, 
depicting  clerical  scenes  in 
south-western  England,  256. 

Cecilia,  by  Burney,  99. 

Cervantes,  Miguel,  referred  to, 
60,  190. 

Character  sketch,  as  found  in 
The  Spectator,  7. 

Chartreuse  de  Parme,  by 
Beyle,  152. 


Chaucer,  Goeffrey,  referred  to, 
4,  138,  160. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  quoted,  11. 

Chesterton,  Gilbert  Keith, 
quoted  or  referred  to,  177, 
190. 

Chimes,  The,  by  Dickens,  190. 

Chivalry,  Prose  romance  of, 
3. 

Chouans,  The,  by  Balzac,  157; 
see  also.  Human  Comedy. 

Christmas,  Feeling  toward,  in- 
fluenced by  Dickens'  Christ- 
mas stories,  191. 

Christmas  Carol,  by  Dickens, 
its   influence,    190. 

Christmas  Stories,  by  Dickens, 
see  The  Chimes,  Christmas 
Carol,  Cricket  on  the 
Hearth. 

Chronicles  of  Barset,  by  Trol- 
lope, 255;  see  also.  Cathe- 
dral series. 

Clarissa  Harlowe,  by  Richard- 
son, plot  and  form,  35;  slow 
movement  and  great  length, 
36;  picture  of  society  of  the 
period,  38;  public  reception, 
39 ;  contemporaneous  with 
Roderick  Random,  73;  con- 
trasted with  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field, 92;  also,  161. 

Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  by 
Reade,  249,  251. 

Cobden-Sanderson,  T.  J.,  home 
at  Hammersmith,  London, 
26. 

Cofl'ee-house,  Eighteenth-cen- 
tury, place  in  social  life,  6. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor, 
quoted,  31,  59. 

Collins,  Wilkie,  skilful  in 
plot,  260;  referred  to,  59, 
176. 

Colloquial  manner,  Fielding 
master  of,  52. 


INDEX 


337 


Comedie  Humaine,  La,  see 
Human  Comedy. 

Comedy,  genius  for,  in  Field- 
ing, 50;  and  broadly  pre- 
sented by  him,  61 ;  of  Mo- 
li^re  likened  to  Austen,  111; 
description  by  Meredith, 
111;  unrivalled  in  Evan 
Harrington,  286. 

Congreve,  William,  knowledge 
of  early  literary  forms,  5; 
visited  by  Voltaire,  19. 

Coningsby,  by  Disraeli,  345. 

Connoisseur,  The,  suggests 
factory  for  making  novels, 
73. 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore, 
Smollett  compared  with,  74; 
romances  based  on  pioneer 
life,  318;  significance  to 
literature,  318;  creative 
power  and  present-day  ap- 
peal, 319;  portrayal  of  the 
Indian,  319;  sea-tales,  320; 
qualities  and  influences  as 
a  romancer,  320. 

Country  Doctor,  The,  by  Bal- 
zac, 90,  160;  see  also.  Hu- 
man Comedy. 

Cousin  Pons,  by  Balzac,  164; 
see  also,  Human  Comedy. 

Cousine  Bette,  by  Balzac,  164, 
166;  see  also.  Human  Com- 
edy. 

Cricket  on  the  Hearth,  by 
Dickens,  190. 

Crusades,   The,   140, 

Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  quoted, 
119. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  jr., 
referred  to,  77. 

Daniel  Deronda,  by  George 
Eliot,  story  subsidiary  to 
problem,  235;  author's  final 
novel,    239;    double    motive 


and  resulting  lack  of  sym- 
metry, 240;  merits  and  les- 
sons, 340;  large  percentage 
of  quotable  sayings,  241;  il- 
lustrates author's  decad- 
ence, 241. 

Dark  A  fair,  A,  by  Balzac, 
164;  see  also,  Human  Com- 
edy. 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  referred  to, 
173,  273. 

David  Balfour,  by  Stevenson, 
sequel  to  Kidnapped,  301, 
307. 

David  Copper  field,  by  Dick- 
ens, represents  author's 
young  prime,  181;  Vanity 
Fair  compared  with,  182; 
evaluation,  186;  also,  177, 
188. 

Day,  Thomas,  Sanford  and 
Merton,  95. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  age  at  publica- 
tion of  Robinson  Crusoe, 
25;  Richardson  compared 
with,  46;  Moll  Flanders,  47; 
shows  possibility  of  power- 
ful story  including  woman, 
119;  Stevenson  compared 
with,  309;   referred   to,  235. 

Democratic  note,  in  eighteenth- 
century  novelists,  15;  preva- 
lent in  Pamela,  30. 

De  Morgan,  William,  age  limit 
in  literary  production,  25; 
also,  36. 

Denis  Duval,  by  Thackeray, 
plan  of,  found  after 
author's  death,  211. 

Desperate        Remedies,      by 
Hardy,  270. 

Diana  of  the  Crossways,  by 
Meredith,  comparison  with 
Daniel  Derondix,  240;  at- 
traction for  American 
readers,  290;  dissertation  on 


:5:5S 


INDEX 


iiKMital  rolalioii  of  sexes, 
'290;  plot,  l'!)1;  mannerisms 
of  stylo,  ^';)J-;  also,  ^'84. 
Dk'ktns,  Charles,  use  of  epi- 
smle,  5.>;  effeet  of  crowded 
existence,  (>(>;  prowtli  of 
mastery  in  style,  1  JO;  adopts 
Balzac's  method,  l(i7;  early 
preparation  in  jcnirnaiism, 
176,  177;  native  gifts,  176; 
place  in  Victorian  literature, 
176;  critical  reaction  in  his 
favor,  177;  demerits  of 
early  work,  178;  new  creat- 
ive power  shown  in  Pick- 
wick Papers,  179;  unsur- 
passed personal  appeal  of 
characters,  180;  passes  from 
episode  and  comic  charac- 
terization to  novel,  180; 
earlier  and  later  works  con- 
trasted, 181 ;  height  reached 
in  David  C'opperfield,  182; 
tendency  to  caricature,  183, 
184;  master  of  omissions, 
184;  extreme  of  good  and 
bad  in  one  t30ok,  185;  evalu- 
ation of  various  works,  186; 
domestic  circumstances 
while  writing  Tale  of  Two 
Cities,  187;  theatrical  tend- 
ency and  dramatic  sense, 
187;  pul^lication  of  Great 
Expectations,  189;  power  to 
depict  complexity  of  life, 
190;  Christmas  Stories,  190; 
personal  relation  between 
author,  reader,  and  charac- 
ters, 192;  one  reason  for 
popularity,  193;  Zola  con- 
trasted with,  193;  demo- 
cratic pleader  for  justice 
and  sympathy,  194;  deepest 
significance,  194;  Thackeray 
compared  with,  196,  203, 
205,  208,  216;  modern  note 


in  his  work,  196;  fluctua- 
tions in  popularity  and  I  heir 
causes,  198;  method  of  pub- 
lication, 209;  congratulates 
George  Kliot  on  jniljlication 
of  Scenes  from  Clerical 
Life,  229;  Disraeli  com- 
pared with,  246;  also  Reade, 
250;  and  Trollope,  253; 
habit  of  exaggeration  dis- 
liked by  Trollope,  258;  com- 
edy of  Meredith  compared 
with  that  of,  287;  quoted  or 
referred  to.  39,  151,  173,  175, 
219,  220,  233,  261,  290,  305. 

Dickens,  John  (father  of 
Charles  Dickens),  original 
of  Micawber  and  of  Father 
of  the  Marshalsea,  176. 

Diderot,  Denis,  quoted,  39. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  Earl  of 
Beaconsfield,  comparison 
with  Austen,  122;  chrono- 
logic setting,  244;  Premier 
of  England,  245 ;  vogue  dur- 
ing middle  of  nineteenth 
century,  245;  political  tril- 
ogy valuable  as  studies  of 
the  time,  245;  Dickens  com- 
pared with,  246;  style,  246; 
lack  of  earnestness  of  pur- 
pose, 246;  criticized  Iw  Trol- 
lope, 247;  Bulwer  compared 
with,  248;  referred  to,  176, 
226,  227,  260. 

Dobson,  Austin,  referred  to, 
69. 

Doctor  Birch  and  his  Young 
Friends,  by  Thackeray,  208. 

Doctor  Heidegger's  Experi- 
ment, by  Hawthorne,  322. 

Doctor  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde, 
by  Stevenson,  301,  .306. 

Dombey  and  Son,  by  Dickens, 
represents  author's  young 
prime,  181;  evaluation,  186; 


INDEX 


339 


power  in  depicting  complex- 
ity of  life,  189;  also,  182. 

Don  Quixote,  by  Cervantes,  50, 
288. 

Drama,  form  of  story-telling, 
2;  popularity  during  Eliza- 
bethan period,  4;  present- 
day  form  influenced  by 
growing  importance  of 
woman,  20;  also,  187. 

Duchess  L' Anglais,  The,  by 
Balzac,  161 ;  see  also,  Hu- 
man Comedy. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  p,ls,  re- 
ferred to,  173. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  p^re,  liter- 
ary menage,  173;  dramatic 
power,  188;  referred  to,  129, 
228,  302,  321. 

Du  Maurier,  George,  age  limit 
in  literary  production,  23; 
referred  to,  21. 

Dynasts,  The,  by  Hardy,  268, 
277. 

Ehh-Tide,  by  Stevenson,  pi- 
caresque and  picturesque, 
301 ;  command  of  exotic  ma- 
terial, 303;  originality  of  ex- 
pression illustrated,  309. 

Ebers,  Georg,  referred  to,  133. 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  various 
types  portrayed,  100;  re- 
ferred to,  98. 

Edinburgh,  Advocates'  Li- 
brary, 133. 

Education,  Problem  of,  study 
of  in  Ordeal  of  Richard 
Feveril,  285. 

Egoist,  The,  by  Meredith, 
Woman  of  Thirty  compared 
with,  163;  test  of  reader's 
attitude  toward  author,  289; 
Stevenson's  opinion,  289; 
analytic  study  of  character 
rather  than  novel,  289;  Sir 


Charles  Grandison  com- 
pared with,  290;  style,  294; 
also,  40,  284. 

Eighteenth  Century,  social  life 
during,  6;  influence  of  the- 
ater, 8;  propagation  of  al- 
truism during,  9;  English 
fiction  of,  a  type  for  Eu- 
rope, 11,  12;  French  fiction 
in  essay  form,  11;  demo- 
cratic note,  15;  novel-writ- 
ing in,  18;  attitude  toward 
literary  professionalism,  19; 
social  ethics  in  Pamela,  29; 
novel  of,  contrasted  with 
that  of  to-day,  31,  35;  low 
standard  of  morals,  53; 
literature  an  aside,  60;  rami- 
fications of  the  novel,  84; 
place  of  Goldsmith  in,  88; 
tendency  to  preach  in  story 
form,  95;  and  toward  mys- 
tery and  horror,  96;  real- 
istic portrayal  of  contem- 
porary society,  98;  popular- 
ity of  women   novelists,  98. 

Eighteenth-century  coffee- 

house, place  in  social  life, 
6. 

Eliot,  George,  age  limit  in  lit- 
erary production,  25,  240; 
Austen  compared  with,  112, 
115;  true  realist,  218;  con- 
ception of  artistic  mission, 
219;  new  psychologic  ele- 
ment comes  into  fiction,  219; 
early  life  and  views,  220; 
their  influence  on  her  work, 

222,  223;  sympathetic  chron- 
icler of  middle-class  country 
life,  221;  personal  develop- 
ment  and   later  works,  221, 

223,  224;  positivism,  222; 
friendship  with  the  Brays, 
223;  negative  philosophy, 
225;     urged     to     write     by 


340 


INDEX 


I.cwcs,  2-25;  main  interest 
development  of  eharaeter, 
-2-2'i  ;  historical  theme  in  lio- 
mola.  -23:?;  dividintr  line  be- 
tween early  and  late  work, 
235;  balance  of  early  and 
late  work.  2il ;  philosophy 
of  later  life,  2i2;  tonic 
force,  2+3;  tendency  to  di- 
dacticism, 277;  referred  to, 
151,    175,   2G1. 

Elizabethan  criticism,  5. 

Elizabethan  period,  fiction  as- 
suming definiteness  of  pur- 
pose, 3;  theater,  8;  also,  IW. 

Elizabethans,  Simplicity  of, 
shown  bv  Hardv,  274. 

Emma,  by"  Austen"  103,  108. 

Endymion,  by  Disraeli,  246, 
247. 

English  society,  Portrayal  of, 
by  Trollope,*  254. 

Epic  poetrj',  oldest  form  of 
story-telling,  2. 

Episode  Under  the  Terror,  by 
Balzac,  164;  see  also,  Hu- 
man Comedy. 

Essay,  as  found  in  The  Spec- 
tator, 7;  natural  develop- 
ment into  fiction,  8;  form 
of  eighteenth-century  French 
fiction,  11;  also,  317. 

Essayists,  Sterne  leader  of, 
86;  see  also,  Irving,  Steven- 
son. 

Eugenie  Orandef,  by  Balzac, 
138,  160;  see  also,  Human 
Comedy. 

Evan  Harrington,  by  Mere- 
dith, satiric  character  sketch 
and  unrivalled  comedy,  286; 
purpose,  plot,  and  evalua- 
tion, 286;  also,  281,  284. 

Evans,  Mary  Anne,  see  George 
Eliot,  pseud. 

Evelina,  bv  Burner,  99. 


Evolution.  Social,  shown  by 
changing  standards  of  mor- 
als, 54.  " 

Excursion,  The,  by  Words- 
worth,   156. 

Expedition  of  Humphrey 
Clinker,  by  Smollett,  81. 

Factory  for  novel-making 
suggested  by  The  Connois- 
seur, 73. 

Faery  Queen,  The,  by  Spenser, 
156. 

Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd, 
by  Hardy,  271. 

Farina,  historical  novelette,  by 
Meredith,  285. 

Felix  Holt,  Radical,  by  George 
Eliot,  dividing  line  between 
early  and  late  work,  235; 
causes  of  lack  of  popular- 
ity,  235;   also,  225. 

Fiction,  various  forms,  1,  3; 
place  in  modern  culture,  1 ; 
precedence  in  time,  2;  as- 
suming definiteness  of  pur- 
pose, 3;  cultivation  as  prose 
romance  of  chivalry,  3;  de- 
velopment into  novel,  4; 
severance  between  romance 
of  heroism  and  study  of 
contemporary  society,  5;  re- 
lation to  essay,  7;  most 
democratic  literary  form, 
15;  Anglo-Saxon  reserves 
and  delicacies  of,  143;  place 
of  problem  novel  in,  241 ; 
see  also,  Novel. 

Fiction,  English,  of  eighteenth 
centurj',  type  for  Europe, 
11,  12;  uncertain  state  at 
beginning  of  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 150;  three  great  lead- 
ers of  realism,  151 ;  later  in- 
fluence of  French  fiction, 
151. 


INDEX 


341 


Fiction,  French,  of  eighteenth 
century,  essay  form,   11. 

Fiction,  French,  INIodern,  sug- 
gestive prurience  of,  53;  see 
also,  Balzac,  Madame  de  La 
Fayette,  Le  Sage,  Prevost, 
Rousseau. 

Fiction,  Modern,  mingling  of 
romance  and  realism, 
125. 

Fielding,  Henry,  attitude  of 
Walpole  toward,  19;  birth 
and  growth  of  no%'el,  34; 
influence  of  Richardson  on, 
48;  publication  of  Adven- 
tures of  Joseph  Andrews, 
49;  Richardson  contrasted 
with,  50,  65,  67,  69;  opinion 
of  Dr.  Johnson,  51;  preju- 
dice of  Boswcll,  51 ;  master 
of  colloquial  manner,  5-2 ;  in- 
fluence on  modern  fiction, 
53;  coarseness,  53;  episodic 
character  of  work,  54;  facts 
of  his  life,  48,  56,  57;  pub- 
lication of  Mr.  Jonathan 
Wild  the  Great,  56;  and  of 
Tom  Jones,  57;  fiction-writ- 
ing an  aside,  57;  first  great 
realist,  61 ;  publication  of 
Amelia,  67;  failing  health 
and  death,  67,  69;  criticized 
by  Lady  Montagu,  68;  place 
among  later  writers,  71 ; 
popularity  shown  in  imita- 
tion, 72;  Smollett  compared 
with,  74,  83;  also  Austen, 
102;  linked  with  Thackeray 
and  George  Eliot,  219;  Mere- 
dith compared  with,  283; 
referred  to,  151,  212,  214. 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  quoted, 
200. 

Flaubert,  (Justave,  place  in  let- 
ters, r,2;  referred  to,  140, 
152. 


France,   Anatole,  criticism  of 

Zola,    193. 
France,    Cultivation    of   prose 

romance  in,  4. 
Franco-Prussian  war,  262. 
French   Revolution,   effect  on 

literature,  124. 

Gadshill,  home  of  Dickens, 
197. 

Gamp,  Sarah,  contrasted  with 
Becky  Sharp,  184;  also,  183. 

Garrick,  David,  The  Regicide 
refused  by,  79;  quoted,  58, 
66. 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  quoted, 
72. 

George  III.,  King,  invites 
Austen  to  write  romance  of 
House  of  Coburg,  105. 

Georges,  The,  new  social  tend- 
encies during  reigns  of,  6; 
also,  140. 

Gil  Bias,  by  Le  Sage,  trans- 
lated by  Smollett,  75;  also, 
4,  50,  74,  83,  179. 

Gissing,  George,  referred  to, 
199. 

Godwin,  William,  Caleb  Wil- 
liams, 95. 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang 
von,  influenced  by  English 
fiction  writers,  12;  praise  of 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  93;  re- 
ferred to,  321. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  birth  and 
growth  of  novel,  34;  place 
in  eighteenth  century  litera- 
ture, 88;  quoted  or  referred 
to,  31,  72,  83,  86. 

Great  Expectations,  by  Dick- 
ens, evaluation,  186,  189; 
power  in  picturing  complex- 
ity of  life,  189;  also,  183. 

Great  Hagqarty  Diamond,  by 
Thackeray,  203. 


:il2 


INDEX 


Great  Provincial  Man  in 
/'tiri.i,  by  Halzac;  nee  also, 
Jlinnan  CodkiIi/. 

Great  Stone  Face,  by  Haw- 
thorne, '■i2-2. 

Griff  House,  home  of  George 
Eliot,    220,    222,    223. 

Gulliver's  Travels,  by  Swift, 
priority  as  to  realism,  45; 
influence  on  eighteenth  cen- 
tury no%'el,  84;  publication, 
87. 

Guy  Mannering,  by  Scott,  123, 
126,  128;  see  also,  ]Vaverley 
Novels. 

Hammersmith,  London,  home 
of  Richardson  and  others, 
26. 

Hampshire,  England,  Life  in, 
depicted  by  Trollope,  256; 
see  also,  Selborne,  Steventon. 

Hand  of  Ethelberta,  by 
Hardy,   271. 

Hanska,    Madame,    158. 

Hants,  see  Hampshire,  Eng- 
land. 

Hard  Times,  by  Dickens,  186. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  growth  of 
truth  in  literature  shown  by 
his  dialogue  as  compared 
with  that  of  earlier  novel- 
ists, 13;  heroines  contrasted 
with  those  of  Austen,  110; 
Trollope  compared  with, 
257;  literary  genealogy, 
264;  influence  of  Zola,  265; 
comparison  with  Meredith, 
265;  elements  of  strength, 
265;  choice  of  locale  in  rela- 
tion to  fatalistic  attitude, 
266;  presentation  of  nature, 
266,  268;  humor  and  style, 
267;  other  distinctive  quali- 
ties, 268;  trend  of  teaching, 
269;    portrayal    of    Wessex 


character,  271;  enumeration 
and  evaluation  of  greatest 
novels,  271;  characterization 
of  women,  275;  tendency  to- 
ward didacticism,  276;  mas- 
ter of  the  short  story,  277; 
last  book,  278;  poetic 
drama,  278;  comparison 
with  Matthew  Arnold,  278; 
influence  upon  English 
novel,  279;  Meredith  com- 
pared with,  280;  referred  to, 
21,  152. 

Harry  Richmond,  see  Adven- 
tures  of   Harry   Richmond. 

Harte,  Bret,  founder  of  a 
genre,  314. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  on  ro- 
manticism, 126;  place  in 
American  romance,  324;  at- 
mosphere of  the  past,  324; 
absorbing  psychologic  inter- 
est as  illustrated  in  his 
works,  325;  power,  328; 
tendency  toward  didacti- 
cism, 328;  style,  338,  329; 
burlesque  and  humor,  329 ; 
changes  in  standards  of  dic- 
tion, 330. 

Heap,  LTriah,  suggested  by 
Mr.  Collins,  in  Pride  and 
Prejudice,  113. 

Heart  of  Midlothian,  by  Scott, 
place  among  Waverley  Noi'- 
els,  134;  essentially  Scotch, 
135;  plot,  135;  typical  of 
Scott's  other  romances,  140; 
also,  128;  see  also,  Waverley 
Novels. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  referred  to, 
67. 

Henley,  William  Ernest, 
quoted,  76,  81,  177. 

Henrietta  Temple,  by  Disraeli, 
246. 

Henry  Esmond,  by  Thackeray, 


INDEX 


343 


merits,  204;  demerits,  205; 
plot,  206;  also,  125. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  com- 
pared with  Smollett,  74; 
also,  8. 

House  and  Brain,  by  Bulwer, 
249. 

House  of  Mirth,  The,  by 
Wharton,  21. 

House  of  Seven  Gables,  by 
Hawthorne,  psychological 
analysis  of  character,  325; 
sympathetic  background, 
326;  theme  and  plot,  326; 
also,  126. 

Howells,  William  Dean, 
growth  of  truth  in  literature 
shown  by  his  dialogue  as 
compared  with  that  of 
earlier  novelists,  13;  criti- 
cism of  Clarissa  Harlowe, 
38;  his  opinion  of  Austen, 
175;  influence  on  English 
realism,  313;  tendency  to- 
ward didacticism,  277; 
quoted  or  referred  to,  8, 
54,   122,  215,  238,  257. 

Huckleberry  Finn,  by  Mark 
Twain,  315. 

Hudson  River  idyls,  see  Irv- 
ing. 

Hugo,  Victor,  effect  of 
crowded  existence  in,  66; 
dramatic  power,  188;  re- 
ferred to,  190. 

Human  Comedy,  by  Balzac, 
early  studies  for,  152;  place 
and  purpose,  154;  impres- 
siveness,  155;  historical 
period  covered,  155;  age  of 
author,  156 ;  encyclopedic 
survey  of  all  classes,  156, 
158;  extent  and  partial  ful- 
filment of  definite  plan,  156, 
157;  divided  into  three 
groups  and  contents  of  each. 


158;  impossible  to  classify, 
159;  various  types  cited,  160, 
164;  comparison  with  Eng- 
lish contemporaries,  161, 
163;  see  also,  individual 
titles. 

Humphrey  Clinker,  see  Expe- 
dition of  Humphrey 
Clinker. 

Hypatia,  by  Charles  Kingsley, 
249. 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  referred  to, 
190,  320. 

Idealism,  Modern,  and  read- 
justment of  religious 
thought,  264. 

Idyls  of  the  King,  by  Tenny- 
son, 143. 

Improvisatori,  Scott  and  Du- 
mas natural,  129. 

Indian,  The,  portrayal  of,  by 
Cooper,  319. 

Irish  types,  first  portrayed  by 
Edgeworth,  100. 

Irving,  Washington,  preceded 
Dickens  in  use  of  Christmas 
motive,  191 ;  master  of  short 
story,  314;  Legend  of 
Sleepy  Holloiv,  316;  pri- 
marily an  essayist,  316;  ex- 
ample of  intercalation  of 
essay  and  fiction,  317;  serv- 
ice to  later  writers,  317;  in- 
stinct for  truth,  318;  re- 
ferred to,  200. 

Island  Night's  Entertainment, 
The,  by  Stevenson,  303. 

Italy,  death  of  Smollett  in, 
74;  struggle  for  unity  de- 
picted in    Victoria,  293. 

Ivanhoe,  by  Scott,  128;  see 
also,  Waverley  Novels. 

Jack   Wilton,  4. 
Jamaica,  Life  in,  first  pictured 
in  Roderick  Random,  76. 


344 


INDEX 


James,  Cicorpe  Payne  Rains- 
fortl,  referral  to,  'XiO. 

James,  Henry,  influence  on 
English  realism,  3i;i;  devo- 
tion to  British  types,  :}13; 
earlier  work  more  represen- 
tative, 314;  referred  to,  11, 
60,  15^. 

Jane  Eijrc,  by  Charlotte 
Bronte,  -59. 

Janet's  Repentance,  see  Scenes 
from  Clerical  Life. 

Jeffrey,  Franeis,  Lord,  re- 
ferred to,  39. 

Jew,  The,  in  fiction,  240;  see 
also,   Daniel   Deronda. 

Joan  of  Arc,  by  Mark  Twain, 
315. 

John  Inglesant,  by  Short- 
house,  mo. 

Johnson,  Doctor  Samuel,  his 
characterization  of  Fielding 
and  Richardson,  51 ;  sells 
manuscript  of  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,  93;  publication 
of  Rasselas,  94;  quoted,  67. 

Jonson,  Ben,  referred  to,  113. 

Journalism,  preparation  for 
novel  writing,  176,  177;  fol- 
lowed by  Thackeray,  203. 

Journalism,  Modern,  genesis 
of,  7. 

Jude  the  Obscure,  by  Hardy, 
comparison  with  earlier 
work,  271 ;  disproportioned 
view  of  life,  273;  reception 
by  critics,  274;  also,  265, 
276,  277. 

Juvenal,  referred  to,  213. 

Kenelm  Chillingly,  by  Bulwer, 

249. 
Kenilworth,  by  Scott,  128;  see 

also,  Waiierley  Novels. 
Kidnapped,  by  Stevenson,  301 ; 

see  also,  David  Balfour. 


King  Horn,  3. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  Austen 
couii)ared  witli,  122;  chrono- 
logic setting,  244;  leader  in 
church  and  state,  245; 
Christianity  dominant  spirit, 
249;  first  to  feel  rise  of 
social  democracy,  249;  re- 
ferred to,  176,  236. 

Kingsley,  Henry  (brother  of 
Charles  Kingsley),  stories  of 
Australian   life,  250. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  growth  of 
truth  in  literature  shown  by 
his  dialogue  as  compared 
with  tliat  of  earlier  novel- 
ists, 13;  psychology  of  ani- 
mals, 17;  Stevenson  com- 
pared with,  309 ;  referred  to, 
11. 

La  Calpren&de,  referred  to, 
11. 

La  Fayette,  Madame  de,  re- 
ferred to,  12. 

Lamb,  Charles,  likeness  to 
Sterne,  86;  referred  to,  211, 
323. 

Lang,  Andrew,  quoted,  177. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  development 
of  novel  and  idea  of  per* 
sonality,  9;  quoted  in  refer- 
ence to  Pamela,  29. 

Laodicean,  The,  by  Hardy, 
271. 

Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  by 
Bulwer,  248. 

Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  by 
Scott,  123. 

Leather  Stocking  series,  by 
Cooper,  318;  see  also,  indi- 
vidual titles. 

Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  by 
Irving,  316. 

Le  Sage,  Alain  Rend,  referred 
to,  12. 


INDEX 


345 


Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim, 
quoted,  122. 

Life,  Sense  of  complexity  of, 
found  in  Dickens  and 
others,  190. 

Life's  Little  Ironies,  by 
Hardy,  277. 

Ligeia,  by  Poe,  322. 

Lilliputian  land,  see  Oulliver's 
Travels. 

Lisbon,  Death  of  Fielding  in, 
67,   69. 

Literary  ideals,  Changing, 
1850-00,  effect  on  popu- 
larity of  Thackeray  and 
Dickens,  198. 

Literary  professionalism,  eigh- 
teenth century  attitude  to- 
ward, 19. 

Literature,  English,  History 
of,  changed  by  Richardson, 
34. 

Little  Dorrit,  by  Dickens,  182, 
186. 

Lockhart,  John  Gibson,  re- 
ferred to,  123. 

Lodging  for  a  Night,  by  Stev- 
enson, 303;  also,  277, 

London,  Jack,  and  psychology 
of  animals,  17. 

Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta, 
by  Meredith,  comparison 
with  earlier  work,  280;  view 
of  marriage  bond,  292. 

Lorna  Doone,  by  Blackraore, 
249. 

Lost  Illusions,  by  Balzac,  164; 
see  also.  Human  Comedy. 

Lothair,  by  Disraeli,  lack  of 
seriousness  and  truth,  247; 
criticized  by  Agnes  Rep- 
plier,  247;  also,  246. 

Love  passion.  Handling  of,  a 
test,  61. 

Lyly,  John,  referred  to,  4,  11, 
258. 


Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington, 
referred  to,  39,  111,  200,  250. 

Mackenzie,  Henry,  referred 
to,  30,  94. 

Madame  B  ovary,  by  Flaubert, 
early  example  of  pathologic 
novel,  172;  plot,  173;  con- 
trasted with  Resurrection, 
192;  also,  140. 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  referred 
to,  96. 

Magic  Skin,  by  Balzac,  165; 
see  also.  Human  Comedy. 

Man  of  Feeling,  by  Mackenzie, 
30,   94. 

Mansfield  Park,  by  Austen, 
103,  108,  110,  112,  115. 

Marble  Faun,  The,  by  Haw- 
thorne, 325. 

Marryat,  Frederick,  referred 
to,  77. 

Marshalsea  (prison  in  Lon- 
don), Father  of  the,  John 
Dickens  original  of,  176. 

Martin  Chuzzlewit,  by  Dick- 
ens, represents  author's 
young  prime,  181 ;  a  master- 
piece, 186;  power  in  depict- 
ing complexity  of  life,  189; 
also,  182. 

Marvel,  Ik,  quoted,  39. 

Master  of  Ballantrae,  by 
Stevenson,  psychologic  ro- 
mance, 301 ;  plot  a  frame- 
work for  character  drawing, 
303;  vivid  impressions, 
306. 

Matthews,  Brander,  and  the 
short-story,  316. 

Maupassant,  Guy  de.  Hardy 
compared  with,  276;  re- 
ferred to,  151,  172. 

Mausoleum  of  Julia,  anon.,  19. 

Mayor  of  Casterbridge,  by 
Hardy,  271,  276. 

Meliorist,  George  Eliot,  a,  242. 


iu6 


INDEX 


Mtlodnimu,  Rciule  master  of, 
Jol. 

Melville,  Herman,  referred  to, 
77. 

Memoirs  Supposed  to  be  Writ- 
ten bt/  a  Lady  of  Quality, 
by  Sinollett,  79. 

Meredith,  George,  description 
of  comedy.  111;  Austen 
compared  with,  115;  also 
mature  work  of  Bulwer, 
248;  refuses  classification, 
265,  279;  Hardy  compared 
with,  265,  267;  "position  as 
novelist  and  growth  of  novel 
during  his  time,  280;  in- 
fluenced by  surrounding 
conditions,  281 ;  noble  type 
of  women,  281 ;  early  per- 
sonal history,  282;  retire- 
ment at  Boxhill  and  Presi- 
dent of  British  Society  of 
Authors,  282;  philosophy  of 
life  as  seen  in  his  books, 
282,  284;  intellectual  appeal, 
282,  285,  293;  comparison 
with  James,  Fielding,  and 
Smollett,  283;  use  of  plot, 
episode,  love,  etc.,  283; 
characterization  and  evalua- 
tion of  greatest  books,  285; 
favorite  task,  287;  great  tri- 
umph in  portrayal  of  Roy 
Richmond,  288;  American 
readers,  290;  view  of  mental 
relation  of  sexes  in  Diana 
of  the  Crossu-ays,  290; 
enemy  of  sentimentalism, 
291;  view  of  marriage,  292; 
originality  in  allying  ro- 
mance and  intellect,  292; 
love  of  Italy  and  compari- 
son with  Browning,  293; 
distinction  as  novelist  and 
thinker,  293;  mannerisms  of 
style,  294;  causes  of  obscur- 


ity, 296;  and  otlicr  dcfc-ts, 
297;  personality,  influence, 
and  aim,  297;  Stevenson  in- 
fluenced ])y,  305;  and  com- 
pared with,  311;  Hawthorne 
comi)ared  with,  325;  re- 
ferred to,  141,  152,  211,  240. 

"Meredith  of  Poetry,  The," 
Browning  called,  293. 

Middle  Ages,  cultivation  of 
prose  romance  during,  3;  a 
view  of,  143. 

Middleinarch,  by  George  Eliot, 
published  serially,  1^11-12, 
and  price  paid,  237;  con- 
ceived as  two  separate  parts, 
237;  theme,  237,  239;  lack 
of  plot,  238;  product  of 
author's  brain  rather  than 
blood,  238;  character  draw- 
ing, 239;  also,  221. 

Mill  on  the  Floss,  by  George 
Eliot,  written  under  stimu- 
lus of  popularitj',  230;  its 
strength,  231;  also,  222, 
281. 

Miniature  painting,  Austen's 
writing  likened  to,  105. 

Mister  Gilfil's  Love  Story,  see 
Scenes  from  Clerical  Life. 

Mister  Jonathan  Wild  the 
Great,  by  Fielding,  56,  57. 

Modern  Love,  sonnet-sequence, 
bv  Meredith,  281. 

Mohawk  Valley,  319. 

Moliere,  Jean  Baptiste  Poque- 
lin,  his  comedy  likened  to 
that  of  Austen,  111;  also, 
60. 

Moll  Flanders,  by   Defoe,  47. 

Monastery,  The,  by  Scott,  128; 
see  also,  Waverley  Novels. 

Monk,  The,  by  Lewis,  96. 

Montaigne,  Michel,  referred 
to,  308. 

Montagu,  Lady  Mary  (Wort- 


INDEX 


347 


ley),  quoted,  15,  24,  29,  41, 
42,  55. 

Moonstone,  The,  by  Collins, 
260. 

Moore,  George,  Jude  the  Ob- 
scure compared  with  early 
work    of,    265. 

Morris,  William,  home  at 
Hammersmith,  26. 

Morte  d' Arthur,  4. 

My  Novel,  by  Bulwer,  248. 

Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  by 
Radcliffe,  satirized  in 
Northanger  Abbey,  107. 

Mystery  and  horror,  Ro- 
mances of,  96. 

Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood,  by 
Dickens,  185. 

Nainne,  by  Voltaire,  30. 

Nana,  by  Zola,  264. 

Naturalism,  out-growth  of 
realism,  262. 

Nature,  salutary  influence  of, 
51 ;  use  of  its  power  by 
Hardy,  266,  268. 

Navy-life,  drawn  by  Smollett, 
74,   76. 

Neo-idealism,  280. 

New  Arabian  Nights,  by  Stev- 
enson, 302,  303. 

New  England  life.  Stories  of, 
first  written  by  Mrs.  Stowe, 
315. 

Newcomes,  The,  by  Thackeray, 
merits  and  demerits,  204, 
205;  strength  of  character 
drawings,  and  organic 
structure,  207;  also,  203. 

Newspapers,  see  Journalism. 

Nicholas  Nickleby,  by  Dick- 
ens,   180,    181. 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich  Wilhelm, 
Meredith  compared  with, 
284;  referred  to,  190. 

Nineteenth  century,  uncertain 


state  of  English  fiction  at 
beginning,  150;  ascendency 
of  realism,  150;  romanticism 
revived  by  Stevenson,  151; 
wide-spread  influence  of 
Balzac,  154,  171;  and  eff'ect 
of  greater  truth  introduced 
by  him,  167;  Thackeray  a 
voice  of  the  later,  196; 
George  Eliot's  grave  outlook 
expression  of  a  mode  of  the 
late,  223;  religious  thought' 
in  relation  to  modern  real- 
ism, 263;  contrilnition  of 
Poe  to  fiction  of,  321. 

Nomenclature,  Confusion  in, 
5,  12. 

Norris,  Frank,  unfinished  tril- 
ogy, 316. 

Northanger  Abbey,  by  Austen, 
satire  on  Mysteries  of 
Udolpho,  107;  power  in 
idiomatic  English,  120;  also, 
103. 

Novel,  development,  4;  defini- 
tion and  early  use  of  word, 
5,  9;  severance  between  ro- 
mance of  heroism  and  study 
of  contemporary  society,  5, 
10;  relation  to  essay,  8; 
treatment  of  personality,  9 ; 
note  of  appeal  in  modern, 
10;  widening  conception  of 
truth,  13;  novel-writing 
risen  to  fine  art,  18;  woman 
a  unifying  principle  in  its 
evolution,  21,  22;  principles 
of  growth,  22;  first  analyt- 
ical, 25;  popularity,  ll/ii- 
'85,  34;  maturing  and  mul- 
tiplying, 72;  growth  in 
nineteenth  century,  ^3; 
characteristics  of,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  romance, 
124;  trend  of,  in  Scott's 
time,  124. 


34.8 


INDEX 


Novel.  Modern,  sources  of 
power,  17;  psychologic  and 
serious,  53;  one  characteris- 
tic of,  65;  accepted  length, 
92. 

Novel  of  eighteenth  century, 
contrasted  with  that  of  to- 
day, 31,  35;  its  writing  an 
aside,  57. 

Novel  versus  romance  at  he- 
ginning  of  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 150. 

Nuneaton,  Warwickshire, early 
home  of  George  Eliot,  220. 

Objective  method,  in  Fielding, 
70. 

(Edipiis  Tyrannus,  Coleridge's 
opinion  of  plot,  59. 

Old  Curiosity  Shop,  by  Dick- 
ens, 181,  185. 

Old  Mortality,  by  Scott,  123, 
128;  see  also,  Waverley  Nov- 
els. 

Oliver  Twist,  by  Dickens,  180, 
181. 

One  of  Our  Conquerors,  by 
Meredith,  comparison  with 
earlier  works,  280;  view  of 
marriage,  293;  mannerisms 
of  style,  294. 

Ordeal  of  Richard  Feveril,  by 
Meredith,  comparison  with 
later  works,  280;  plot,  char- 
acterization, and  evaluation, 
285,  287;  also,  284. 

Our  Mutual  Friend,  by  Dick- 
ens, 186. 

Pair  of  Blue  Eyes,  bv  Hardy, 
270. 

Pamela,  by  Richardson,  publi- 
cation, 5;  democratic  note, 
15;  early  study  of  woman, 
21;  first  novel  of  analysis, 
25;    form   and   plot,  25,  26, 


28;  compared  with  modern 
fiction,  27;  French  dramatic 
version,  30;  same  motive 
u.sed  by  Voltaire  in  Xainne, 
30;  sentimentality,  30;  suc- 
cess, .33;  influence  upon 
Fielding,  48;  caricature,  in, 
48;  chronologic  setting,  73, 
87;  also,  72,  161. 

Paradox  of  literature,  Ama- 
teur writing  a,  104. 

Paris,  Artist  life  in,  depicted 
by  Balzac,  164. 

Parliamentary  series,  by  Trol- 
lope,  256. 

Passion  in  the  Desert,  by  Bal- 
zac, 157;  see  also.  Human 
Comedy. 

Patron,  Freedom  from  the, 
one  result  of  democratic 
note,   30. 

Pavilion  on  the  Links,  by 
Stevenson,  306. 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  re- 
ferred to,  282. 

Peg  Woffington,  by  Reade, 
251. 

Pendennis,  by  Thackeray,  mer- 
its and  demerits,  204,  205; 
strength  of  character  draw- 
ing and  organic  structure, 
207;  also,  204,  219. 

Pdre  Goriot,  by  Balzac,  com- 
parison with  Dickens  as  to 
difference  between  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Celtic  genius, 
162;  also,  160,  166,  168, 
170;  see  also.  Human  Com- 
edy. 

Peregrine  Pickle,  see  Adven- 
tures of  Peregrine  Pickle. 

Personality,  development  of 
interest  in,  6,  9. 

Persuasion,  by  Austen,  103, 
108. 

Petit    Chose,   he,   by   Daudet, 


INDEX 


349 


Tcss  of  the  d'Urbervill&s 
compared  with,  273, 

Phillpotts,  Eden,  influence  of 
Hardy  upon,  266. 

Pickwick  Papers,  by  Dickens, 
effect  of  Smollett  upon,  83; 
original  plan,  178;  method, 
purpose,  and  definition,  179; 
typical  of  later  work,  179; 
diversity  of  judgment  con- 
cerning, 183;  also,  150,  177, 
178. 

Pilot,  The,  by  Cooper,  320. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  master  of 
short  story,  314,  316;  con- 
tribution to  nineteenth  cen- 
tury fiction,  321 ;  unsur- 
passed specimens  of  ro- 
mance, 323;  importance  to 
poetry,  332 ;  comparison 
with  Hawthorne  and  others, 
323. 

Poetic  drama,  essayed  by 
Hardy,  368,  277. 

Pope,   Alexander,   quoted,   32. 

Positivism,  exemplified  in 
George  Eliot's  mature  life, 
222. 

Pre-Raphaelite,  Austen  a  lit- 
erary,   105. 

Pride  and  Prejudice,  by  Aus- 
ten, place  in  order  of  pub- 
lication, 103;  rank  and  plot, 
107;  character  studies,  109, 
110;  power  in  idiomatic 
English,   120;  also,   123. 

Primrose,  Dr.,  comparison 
with  Country  Doctor  by 
Balzac,  90;  see  also.  Vicar 
of   Wakefield. 

Priory,  The,  London,  later 
home  of  George  Eliot, 
223. 

Problem  novel,  place  in  fiction, 
241. 

Professional   life,   idealization 


of,  in  Vicar  of  Wakefield, 
90. 

Prose  romance,  see  Fiction. 

Psychic  analysis  in  fiction  in- 
troduced  by   Beyle,   152. 

Psychologic  truth  most  mod- 
ern note  of  realism,  324. 

Psychology,  in  modern  novel 
as  contrasted  with  earlier, 
13;  in  Richardson,  50;  sim- 
pler in  Fielding,  51 ;  in  novel 
of  to-day,  53;  superficial  in 
Scott,  130;  in  George  Eliot, 
219,  229;  of  Stevenson  com- 
pared with  that  of  Scott, 
304;  in  James,  314;  horror 
and  mystery  in  Poe,  316; 
Ibsenian  psychology  of 
women,   330. 

Psychology,  Animal,  in  mod- 
ern novels,  17. 

Puddin'  Head  Wilson,  by 
Mark  Twain,  315. 

Put  Yourself  in  His  Place, 
by  Reade,  251. 

Quentin  Durward,  by  Scott, 
128;  see  also,  Waverley  Nov- 
els. 

Quest  of  the  Absolute,  by  Bal- 
zac, 166;  see  also.  Human 
Comedy. 

Quilp,  exaggeration  of  the 
comic,  185;  see  also.  Carica- 
ture; Dickens. 

Rabelais,  Francois,  model  for 

Sterne,  84. 
Radcliffe,  Mrs.  Anne,  referred 

to,  96,  98. 
Rapacinni's       Daughter,       by 

Hawthorne,  332. 
Rasselas,  Prince  of  Abyssinia, 

by  Johnson,  94. 
Reade,     Charles,     chronolofric 

setting,  244;  personal  char- 


350 


INDEX 


nc'teristics,  250;  specific 
qualities  as  novelist,  251 ;  at- 
titude toward  socially  unfit, 
251;  referred  to,  173, 
176. 

Realism,  tendency  toward,  in 
early  novelists,  12;  defini- 
tion, 1G7;  influenced  by 
Scott  and  Austen,  175;  and 
by  Howells  and  James,  313; 
fiill  pulse  of,  in  George 
Eliot,  218;  satiric  study  in 
My  Novel,  248;  in  Trollope, 
257;  Jane  Eyre  example  of 
romanticism  in  age  of,  259; 
passes  to  naturalism,  262; 
influence  of  scientific 
thought  upon,  263;  reaction, 
264;  logic  of  modern,  265; 
current  purified  by  Steven- 
son, 299;  lesson  to  romanti- 
cism, 308;  psychologic  truth 
most  modern  note,  324;  see 
also,  280. 

Red  Gauntlet,  by  Scott,  128; 
see  also,  Waverley  Novels. 

Regicide,  The,  by  Smollett,  79. 

Religious  thought  during  late 
nineteenth  century,  Read- 
justment of,  263. 

Repplier,  Agnes,  criticism  of 
Lothair,  247. 

Resurrection,  by  Tolstoy,  con- 
trasted with  Madame  Bo- 
vary,  192. 

Return  of  the  Native,  by 
Hard}^  influence  of  its  set- 
ting, 268;  representative 
work  of  author,  271 ;  no  defi- 
nite theme,  276. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  referred 
to,  89. 

Rhoda  Fleming,  by  Meredith, 
Stevenson's  opinion  of,  289; 
seduction  melodrama,  293; 
also,  283,  284. 


Richard  Fcreril,  see  Ordeal  of 
■    Jiichard  Fercril.  — - — 

Richardson,  Samuel,  leisureli- 
ness  of  movement  in  his  nov- 
els, 11;  cojjied  by  Rousseau, 
12;  influence  on  fiction,  18; 
attitude  of  WaljKilc  toward, 
19;  founder  of  tlie  modern 
novel,  2:5,  34;  dciuocralic 
sj^mpatliies,  23;  life  in  I>on- 
don,  24,  26;  production  of 
Pamela,  25;  consequent 
pros])crity,  26;  results  in  his 
social  life,  32;  Clnrjjixa  Ilnr- 
lowii  published,  35;  criti- 
cized by  Valdos,  36;  Sir 
Charles  Orandison  pub- 
lished, 39;  contrasted  with 
Fielding  and  influence  upon, 
36,  43,  45,  48,  52,  53;  au- 
thority and  characteristics 
of  work,  43;  affinity  with 
latter  day  realists,  44;  social 
instinct  his  foundation,  45; 
comparison  with  Defoe  and 
Swift,  45;  marks  beginning 
of  modern  form,  46;  psy-_ 
chology____jiaramjount,  .  47; 
opinion  of  Dr.  Johnson,  51; 
place  among  later  writers, 
71 ;  popularity  shown  in  imi- 
tation, 72;  compared  with 
I  Smollett,  83;  and  with  Aus-  ; 
I     ten,    102;    referred    to,    151,  J 

,      154,  211,  225,  247.____ 

^ing   and   the    Book,   The,  by 

Browning,    156. 
Rob  Roy,  by  Scott,   146;  see 

also,  Waverley  Novels. 
Robert     Elsmere,    by    Ward, 

236. 
Robinson    Crusoe,    by    Defoe, 
priority   as   to   realism,   45; 
chronologic  setting,  87;  also, 
4,  25,  50. 
Roderick    Random,    see    Ad- 


INDEX 


351 


ventures  of  Roderick  Ran- 
dom. 

Romance,  aristocratic  appeal 
in  older,  10;  bases  of  appeal 
in  early,  10;  contrasted  with 
realism,  13;  love  of,  fostered 
by  Swift  and  others,  88; 
exemplified  in  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,  89;  characteris- 
tics of,  as  distinguished 
from  novel,  131;  influence 
of  Scott  on,  175;  allied  with 
intellect  by  Meredith,  293; 
contributions  toward  by 
American  writers,  316; 
dominant  form  in  England, 
318;  reaction  from  extremes 
of  realism,  330;  see  also, 
Scott,   Stevenson. 

Romantic,  Balzac  an  incura- 
ble,  168. 

Romanticism,  Modern,  and  re- 
adjustment of  religious 
thought,  264. 

Romnev,  George,  referred  to, 
89. 

Romola,  by  George  Eliot,  his- 
torical setting,  233;  typical 
of  author's  other  work  in 
psychological  aspect,  333; 
impression  on  the  reader, 
234;  amount  paid  for,  234; 
professional  rather  than 
spontaneous,  235;  also,  125, 
221. 

Rouge  et  Noir,  Le,  by  Beyle, 
first  novel  of  psychic  analy- 
sis, 152;  typical  in  dealing 
with  love  and  tragedy,  153; 
plot,   153. 

Roughing  It,  by  Mark  Twain, 
315. 

Rour/on-Macquart  series,  by 
Zola,  262. 

Roundabout  Papers,  by 
Thackeray,  203. 


Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  re- 
ferred to,  9,  12,  39. 

Ruskin,  John,  quoted  or  re- 
ferred to,  105,  149. 

Russell,  Clark,  referred  to, 
77. 

Ruth,  Book  of,  as  fiction,  3. 

Sad  Fortunes  of  Rev.  Amos 
Barton,  see  Scenes  from 
Clerical  Life. 

Saint  Ives,  by  Stevenson,  301. 

Sainte-Beuve,  Charles  Augus- 
tin,  quoted,  2. 

Salambo,  by  Flaubert,  172. 

Saldar,  Countess  de,  in  Evan 
Harrington,  compared  with 
Becky  Sharp,  287. 

Salem,  Mass.,  site  of  House 
of  the  Seven  Gables,  326. 

Salisbury  Cathedral,  inspira- 
tion to  Trollope,  256. 

Sandra  Belloni,  by  Meredith, 
283,   291. 

Sanford  and  Merton,  by  Day, 
95. 

Scarlet  Letter,  The,  by  Haw- 
thorne, 325. 

Scenes  from  Clerical  Life,  by 
George  Eliot,  her  first  book, 
225;  composed  of  three 
tales,  their  inequalities  and 
general  characterization,  226; 
Dickens'  congratulations 

upon   publication,   239. 

Scenes  from  Private  Life,  see 
Human  Comedy. 

Scientific  faith,  Rapid  move- 
ment of  thought  toward, 
1S30-'(J0,   196. 

Scientific  thought.  Influence 
of,  upon  literature,  263. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  attitude  to- 
ward literary  professional- 
ism, 20;  his  criticism  of 
Austen,     102;     early     work 


S.'iCJ 


INDEX 


nnonyinous.  \23;  qii;ililU\s  of 
life  nlnted  to  work,  12'A; 
oontrilnition  to  modern  fic- 
tion, lii;  ns  a  romanticist 
and  novelist,  125;  novels 
separated  into  two  groups, 
1-28;  quality  of  work  af- 
fected liy  liurdcns  of  later 
years,  1J8;  successful  effort 
to  cancel  debts,  129;  quali- 
ties as  a  raconteur,  139;  de- 
scription bv  a  contempo- 
rary, 130;  style,  130;  Tory 
limitations,  130;  place  of  ro- 
mances in  literature,  131; 
comparison  with  contempo- 
raries and  lines  of  greatest 
success,  131 ;  historical 
range  of  romances,  140; 
plots  varied,  motives  few, 
140;  interpretation  of  hu- 
manity, 140;  comparison 
with  modern  masters,  141 ; 
character  drawn  from  with- 
out not  by  analysis,  141; 
"  feudal  m'ind,"  141 ;  vivid 
drawing  of  picturesque 
characters,  141;  center  of 
interest,  141 ;  personal 
tastes  and  conception  of 
mission  of  fiction,  142;  tech- 
nical qualifications,  143; 
largeness  of  eflfect  as  in 
comparison  with  Austen, 
143;  more  interested  in 
character  than  in  plot,  144; 
range  of  characters  excelled 
only  by  Dickens,  144;  defi- 
nite talent  for  stage  setting 
of  royalty,  146;  called 
"Wizard  of  the  North," 
146;  particularly  strong  in 
environment,  146;  present- 
day  criticism,  147;  style, 
148;  emphasis  laid  on  heroic 
aspects  of  life,   149;  deatli 


in  1832,  150;  influence  on 
realism,  173;  dramatic 
power,  188;  Stevenson  com- 
pared with,  304,  308;  re- 
ferred to.  164,  318,  321. 

Selborne,  England,  102. 

Sense  and  sensibililj/,  by  Aus- 
ten, plot,  107;  first  draught 
epistolary  in  form,  109; 
also,  103." 

"Sensibility,"  30;  see  also, 
Sentimentality. 

Sentimental  Journey,  by 
Sterne,  85. 

Sentimentality,  as  shown  in 
Pamela  and  NicJwlas  Nic- 
klehy,  30,  31 ;  reaction  in 
modern  times,  31 ;  fiercely 
satirized  in  Sandra  Belloni, 
291. 

Seraphita,  by  Balzac,  165;  see 
also.  Human  Comedy. 

Sevign^,  Madame  de,  visits 
Austen,   19. 

Sexual  relations.  Novels  of, 
172. 

Shakspere,  William,  person- 
ality merged  in  characters, 
75;  referred  to,  4,  59,  138, 
156,  289. 

Shaving  of  Shagpat,  by  Mere- 
dith, 281. 

Shaw,  Bernard,  quoted,  14. 

Short  stories,  by  Hardy,  277; 
see  also,  Hawthorne, 
Poe. 

Short  story.  Cultivation  of,  in 
America,  316. 

Shorthouse,  Joseph  Henry,  re- 
ferred to,  249. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  quoted, 
133! 

Sienkiewicz,  Henryk,  referred 
to,   190. 

Silas  Marner,  by  George  Eliot, 
form  and  plot,  231;  union 


INDEX 


353 


of  artistic  .'uid  dramatic, 
231;  its  teaching,  232. 

Sir  Charles  (Jrandison,  by 
Richardson,  purpose,  39; 
comparison  with  author's 
other  novels,  40;  plot,  41; 
criticisms  by  Lady  Montagu, 
41,  43;  comparison  with 
The  Egoist,  290;  also, 
247. 

Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  Papers, 
as  character  sketches,  7; 
their  relation  to  the  novel 
paralleled  by  Irving's  work 
in  essay  and  fiction,  317. 

Sketch  Book,  The,  by  Irving, 
317. 

Sketches  by  Boz,  by  Dickens, 
150,  178. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  biography  of 
Austen,  113. 

Smollett,  Tobias,  Roderick 
Random  published,  73;  com- 
parison with  contempo- 
raries, 73,83;  and  with  mod- 
ern writers,  74,  83;  career 
in  England  and  death  in 
Italy,  74,  81;  follows  Gil 
Bias  as  model  and  translates 
it,  74;  contrasted  with 
Shakspere  and  Balz.ac,  7.5; 
lines  of  interest  in  his  work, 
76;  genius  for  characteriza- 
tion, 77;  style,  78;  publica- 
tion of  best  known  novels, 
79,  80,  81;  Meredith  com- 
pared with,  283. 

Snov)  Image,  The,  by  Haw- 
thorne, 322,  324. 

Social  democracy,  first  felt  by 
Charles   Kingsley,  249. 

Spain,  Cultivation  of  prose  ro- 
mance in,  4. 

Spectator,  The,  .social  in- 
fluence, 6;  contributory  to 
development    of    novel,    7; 


see  also,  Sir  Roger  de  Cover- 
ley  Papers. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  referred  to, 
3,   15fi. 

Spy,  The,  by  Cooper,  320. 

Steele,  Sir  Richard,  and  gene- 
sis of  modern  journalism, 
7;  also,  5. 

Stendahl,  pseud.,  see  Beyle, 
Henri. 

Stephen,  Sir  Leslie,  quoted,  37. 

Sterne,  Lawrence,  f)irth  and 
growth  of  novel,  34;  com- 
parison with  contempo- 
raries, 83,  8.5 ;  essayist  rather 
than  novelist,  8.5,  86;  like- 
ness to  Lamb,  86. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis, 
growth  of  truth  in  literature 
shown  by  his  dialogue  as 
compared  with  that  of  ear- 
lier novelists,  13;  share  in 
revival  of  romance,  151; 
Hardy  compared  with,  280; 
his  opinion  of  Meredith, 
289;  double  role  of  essayist 
and  novelist,  299;  historical 
service  to  English  fiction, 
299;  death  at  Vailima,  299; 
personal  and  literary 
charms,  299;  qualities  of 
early  work,  300;  and  of 
later,  301 ;  psychologic  ro- 
mance of  Scotch  novels  best 
expression  of  genius,  301, 
303;  interest  in  character 
study,  302;  masterpieces  of 
foreign  setting,  .303;  com- 
parison with  Scott,  304; 
technical  skill,  304;  style  in 
essay  and  fiction,  .305;  in- 
fluenced by  Meredith,  305; 
power  of  representing  and 
envisaging  character  illus- 
trated, 305;  refutation  of 
charge  of  Imitation,  306;  in- 


354 


INDEX 


orcnsinir  power  in  drawing 
woiiifii  Mini  I'oinparisoii  \\\[\\ 
tliosc  of  Scott  ami  Tliack- 
eray,  307;  witnrss  to  reality 
aiui  trutli  in  romance,  308; 
human  sympathy,  309;  qual- 
ities of  style,  30!);  essays 
complement  of  fiction,  311; 
philosophy  of  life  and  re- 
ligious attitude,  311;  legacy 
to  literature,  31.?;  qiinfcd  or 
referred  to,  80,  1:30,  131,211, 
23-2,  277,  289,  322. 

Steventon,  England,  home  of 
Austen,  102. 

Story-telling,  its  antiquity,  1, 
3;  three  ways  of,  2. 

Stout  Gentleman,  The,  by 
Irving,  317. 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  (Beech- 
er),  started  line  of  studies 
of  New  England  rustic  life, 
315. 

Stuarts,  The,   140. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  Richardson 
compared  with,  40;  chrono- 
logic setting,  87;  Stevenson 
compared  with,  309;  also, 
57. 

Sybil,  by  Disraeli,  245. 

Taine,  Hippolyte  Adolphe, 
conception  of  environment 
as  shaping  power,  268; 
quoted,  8,  41,  58,  141,  214. 

Tale  of  Two  Cities,  by  Dick- 
ens, evaluation,  186;  dra- 
matic study  of  French  Rev- 
olution, 187;  conditions  im- 
der  which  it  was  written, 
187;  lack  of  humor,  187; 
also,  125,  183. 

Tales  of  My  Landlord,  by 
Scott,  128;  see  also,  Waver- 
ley   Novels. 

Tancred,  by  Disraeli,  245. 


Tarascon,  2R8. 

"  Tcacu])    Times,"   6. 

Temple  liar,  London,  Rich- 
ardson's shop   beyond,  25. 

Tender  Husband,  by  Steele,  5. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord, 
quoted  or  referred  to,  53, 
143,  200,  282. 

Tess  of  the  d'Urbervilles,  by 
Hardy,  comparison  with 
earlier  work,  271;  fatalistic 
teaching  and  faulty  conclu- 
sion, 272;  comparison  with 
Le  Petit  Chose,  273;  also, 
21,  267,  276. 

Testing  of  Diana  Mallory,  by 
Ward,  21. 

Thackeraj',  William  Make- 
peace, master  of  colloquial 
manner,  52;  criticism  of 
Fielding,  70;  opinion  of 
Dickens'  Christmas  Stories, 
191;  lovers  of,  mutually  ex- 
clusive toward  Dickens,  195; 
comparison  with  Dickens, 
196,  199,  205,  208,  216; 
voice  of  late  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 196;  modern  note  in, 
196;  tests  of  his  art  and 
message,  197;  fluctuations  in 
popularity  and  their  cause, 
198;  cjmicism  a  mooted 
point,  200,  202,  203;  per- 
sonal qualities,  200,  202; 
circumstances  of  early  life, 
201 ;  satirist  of  contempo- 
rary social  faults,  201,  207, 
213;  work  as  essayist  and 
journalist,  202,  203;  point 
of  view,  208;  careless  tech- 
nique, 209;  dramatic  sense, 
210;  style,  211;  satire,  212, 
213,  216;  portrayal  of  wom- 
en, 215;  attitude  toward  fic- 
tion, 216;  comparison  with 
George    Eliot,    218;    failure 


INDEX 


S55 


to  depict  life  with  faithful 
frankness,  219 ;  Trollope 
compared  with,  253;  and  in- 
fluence upon,  258;  attitude 
of  Charlotte  Bronte  toward, 
259 ;  Stevenson  compared 
with,  308,  311;  quoted  or  re- 
ferred to,  60,  143,  151,  173, 
176,  214,  220,  233,  237,  238, 
261,  287,  290. 

Theater,  The,  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  social  influence,  8; 
greater  degree  of  truth  de- 
manded, 14;  see  also,  Drama. 

Three  Strangers,  The,  by 
Hardy,  277. 

Title  page  of  the  past,  27. 

Tolbooth,  The,  Edinburgh, 
Heart  of  Midlothian,  story 
of,  135. 

Tolstoy,  Leo,  tendency  to  di- 
dacticism, 277;  referred  to, 
156,  190. 

Tom  Jones,  A  Foundling,  by 
Fielding,  his  best  known 
work,  57;  plot,  58;  Coler- 
idge's criticism  of,  59;  bio- 
graphical, 59;  strength  and 
limitations,  59,  61,  64;  loose 
construction,  65;  subsidiary 
characters,  66;  reception 
abroad,  67;  chronologic  set- 
ting, 73. 

Tom  Sawyer,  by  Mark  Twain, 
315. 

Tragedy  in  modern  literature, 
pure  example  of  in  Hardy's 
nature  stories,  266. 

Treasure  Island,  by  Stevenson, 
early  objective  teaching, 
300;  return  to  romance  wel- 
comed, 302;  portrayal  of 
John  Silver,  305;  psycho- 
logic attitude,  311;  also, 
306. 

Trilby,  by  Du   Maurier,  21. 


Tristram  Shandy,  by  Sterne, 
influence  on  eighteenth-cen- 
tury novel,  84;  essay  rather 
than  novel,  85;  eight  years 
in  publication,  86. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  chrono- 
logic setting,  244;  criticized 
by  Disraeli,  247;  influence 
and  power  to-day,  252,  258; 
consummate  master  of  the 
commonplace,  252;  Austen 
compared  with,  253;  quali- 
ties as  writer,  253;  scope, 
system,  and  method  of  plan, 
254;  technique,  255;  volum- 
inousness,  255;  inherited  ca- 
pacity for  writing,  256; 
works  divided  into  two  ser- 
ies, 256;  realism  and  style, 
257;  pioneer  in  local  fiction, 
257;  influenced  by  Thack- 
eray, 258;  satirizes  Dickens' 
habit  of  exaggeration,  258; 
quoted  or  referred  to, 
106,  122,  175,  208,  247, 
261. 

Twain,  Mark,  referred  to,  315. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  by  Stowe, 

315. 
Under    the    Greenwood    Tree, 

by  Hardy,  265,  270. 

Vailima,  Island  of  Samoa, 
home  of  Stevenson,  299. 

Vald^s,  Juan,  Richardson 
criticized  by,  36. 

Vanity  Fair,  by  Thackeray, 
comparison  with  David  Cop- 
perfield,  182;  merits  and  de- 
merits, 204,  205;  loose  con- 
struction, 206,  209;  reasons 
for  supremacy,  207;  com- 
pared with  Middlemarch, 
237;  also,  218. 

Vathek,  by  Beck  ford,  96. 


356 


INDEX 


Venftia,  by  Disraeli,  246. 

I'lVdr  of  iVnkefithl,  by  CloUl- 
siuith,  inriiR'iioe  in  cigh- 
teonth  century  novel,  84; 
publication,  89;  plot,  charm, 
and  power,  89;  contrasted 
with  realism  of  Clarissa 
Ilarloire,  92;  praised  by 
Goethe,  93;  manuscript  sold 
bv  Dr.  Johnson,  93;  also, 
7l\ 

Villette,  by  Charlotte  Bronte, 
259. 

Vir(/inians.  The,  by  Thack- 
eray, 20i. 

Vittoria,  by  Meredith,  Italian 
struggle  for  unitj',  !293; 
also,  283. 

Voltaire,  Francois  Marie 
Arouet  de,  visits  Congreve, 
19;  motive  of  Pamela  used 
in  Nainne,  30. 

Walpole,  Horace,  depreciation 
of  professional  writers,  19; 
Castle  of  Otranto,  96; 
quoted,  82. 

War,  Balzac's  power  of  en- 
visaging,  163,   164. 

Ward,  Mrs.  Mary  Augusta 
(Arnold),  tendency  to  di- 
dacticism, 277;  referred  to, 
21,  236. 

Warden,  The,  by  Trollope, 
254. 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley, 
quoted,  194. 

Water  Babies,  by  Charles 
Kingsley,  249, 

Waverley  Novels,  by  Scott, 
tj'pical  of  author's  method 
and  charm,  132;  character- 
ization of  plot,  132,  134;  re- 
sult of  unconscious  prepara- 
tion, 133;  see  also  individual 
titles. 


Wessex,  background  of 
Hardv's  novels,  256,  265, 
270,  275. 

Westminster  Abbey,  Dickens 
buried  in,  197. 

Westward  Ho!,  by  Charles 
Kingsley,  249. 

Weir  of  Hermiston,  by  Stev- 
enson, psychologic  romance, 
301 ;  contrasted  types  of 
women,  307. 

Wharton,  Mrs.  Edith  (Jones), 
referred  to,  21. 

White,  Gilbert,  referred  to, 
103. 

Whitman,  Walt,  referred  to, 
239. 

Wieland,  by  Brown,  96. 

Wiltshire,  England,  I,ife  in, 
depicted  by  Trollope,  256. 

"  Wizard  of  the  North,"  Scott 
called,   146. 

Woman,  influence  in  molding 
novel,  20,  22;  popularity  as 
writer  in  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, 98;  portrayal  by 
Thackerav,  215;  type  drawn 
by  Meredith,  281;  disserta- 
tion on  mutual  relation  of 
sexes  in  Diana  of  the  Cross- 
ways,  290;  drawn  by  Steven- 
son and  compared  with 
those  of  Scott  and  Thack- 
eray, 307,  308. 

Woman  of  Thirty,  by  Balzac, 
quick  of  psychological  ex- 
posure reached  in,  162;  com- 
pared with  The  Eyoist,  163. 

Woodlanders,  The,  bv  Hardy, 
268. 

Wordsworth,  William,  re- 
ferred to,  156. 

Wrecker,  The,  bv  Stevenson, 
300,  301. 

Wuthering  Heights,  by  Emily 
Bronte,  259. 


INDEX 


357 


Yankee  at  the  Court  of  King 
Arthur,  by  Mark  Twain, 
315. 

Yellowplush  Papers,  by 
Thackeray,  203. 

Zola,  Emile,  high-priest  of 
naturalist  school,  152;  king 
among  modern  realists,  167; 
inheritance  from  preceding 
writers,  173;  influence  upon 
English  fiction,  174;  his  real- 


ism contrasted  with  that  of 
Dickens,  184;  criticized  by 
Anatole  France,  193;  theory 
and  practice  in  fiction,  262; 
influence  of  scientific  thought 
upon,  263;  distinction  of  his 
work  and  its  historical  in- 
terest, 264;  conception  of 
environment  as  shaping 
power,  268;  quoted  or  re- 
ferred to,  151,  152,  163, 
165. 


I 


AA       001  366  339 


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